


Nice

by yourpricelessadvice (orphan_account)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Girl Direction, Lesbian Character, Light Angst, POV Louis, Pining, Underage Drinking, discussions of body image, it's 2011 and they're all 17, not much smut beyond some dirty talk and kissing, sixth form AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 07:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 43,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16425122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/yourpricelessadvice
Summary: When Louis’ best friend Harry confides in her that she’s a lesbian, she gives Louis the confidence to do the same thing, and when Harry comes out in year eleven, Louis isn’t far behind her. Going from just mum and Harry knowing to the whole school know is daunting, and early on one person gets the wrong end of the stick and quickly the entire sixth form assumes they’re dating, their friends think they’re shagging and their mothers think they’re destined to get married and adopt babies.Yes, Louis loves Harry, but she’s not in love with her.Is she?





	1. Part One: Everyone Else in the Room Can See It

“Good morning girls, guys and gays!”

Louis glances up at the unmistakable sound of a wild Niall Horan approaching. 

“We’ve only gone and made it to the end of fucking term, lads!”

Niall’s big mouth fills the room, as does her vivacious personality, and it’s a good job Louis isn’t one, easily embarrassed, or two, trying to be inconspicuous because practically every head in the room swivels around to look in their direction. Thank God their sixth form group is only 36 pupils strong.

Niall grins broadly as she squeezes herself onto the sofa between Louis and Liam, wiggling her bum around until they get the hint and shuffle apart to make room for her.

To an outsider, the six of them sat around together may look fairly formidable, strength in numbers, but on the social hierarchy they’d still be classed as the outcasts. Blonde Irish Niall (that is actually the email address she made in year seven) is irritating beyond belief, but she gets away with it because she’s charming. Liam is also irritating, but in a different way. If there is fun to be had, Liam will be the one to put a stop to it. She’s the mum friend, as Harry puts it. Zayn, who incidentally hasn’t actually arrived yet, absolutely  _ lives _ for winding Liam up, almost to the point of tears. 

Ed and Nick have the knack of seeming like good guys but Louis has never really warmed to them. And, as far as Louis is concerned the only reason Ed and Nick hang around with them is because of their unrequited crushes on Harry; unrequited because like Louis, Harry is a  _ giant _ lesbian. 

And Harry. 

Miss Harriet Styles. 

Harry is Louis’ best friend. Louis has known the curly haired baby deer for almost all of her life, and she’s loved her since she knew what love was. She’s not  _ in _ love with her, though, despite what Niall (and Zayn and Liam and their mum’s) might think. 

The part that nobody can seem to get their head around, though, is that even though they’re both interested in girls, they’re not interested in each other.

“So!” Niall says, nudging Louis’ with her elbow. “Are you and Harry shagging?”

Louis sighs, catching Nick’s eye across the circle,  _ awkward _ . “Y’know, it is getting very boring you asking that question every five minutes, Nialler.”

“Yeah, it’s  _ so _ predictable, Niall.” Harry contributes.

“Sorry!” Niall shrugs. She’s not sorry. “I wouldn’t have to keep asking if you two would just sort your acts out and admit that you are.”

“We’re not!” Harry exclaims, perhaps a bit desperately. Louis lets her mouth hang open in affronted indignation, prompting Harry to pull a face. “Oh, c’mon! You’re not offended; we literally are  _ not _ shagging!”

“Well we all want you to!” Niall cries.

Louis laughs as Harry pulls a face and exclaims, “Well you have an unhealthy obsession with our sex lives then!”

“Ha! So you admit you have a sex life!” Niall exclaims joyously, mainly just winding Harry up at this point. 

“Yes! But not togeth- oh you know what? Forget it, I hate you all.”

Louis laughs as Harry crosses her arms over her body and sulks. “Love you too, Hazzykins!” She coos, throwing Niall a wink as she does.

“Oh, is it finally official now?” Zayn appears at that exact moment, sauntering in looking thoroughly unimpressed to be here, never mind the fact they’re about to have six weeks off for the summer. 

“Oh my God, you lot need to find hobbies ‘cause this is getting boring!” Harry cries, almost literally.

Zayn chuckles as she sits down. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

Harry makes a tight fist and thumps Zayn’s thigh in retaliation.

“Oi!” Zayn hisses, thumping Harry back. 

  
  


The bell sounds and they file into their tutor room then head off in different directions for first period. Media studies is a write off; they spend the entire double period watching a film and at break time they spend the entirety of the fifteen minutes standing in the queue to get snacks; scarfing them down as they all trundle off to double English - the only class that all five of them have together.

Louis naturally falls into step with Harry as they make their way from the canteen to the English department. Louis gives her a reassuring smile and links their hands where they hang between their bodies. Hand in hand they make their way down the busy corridors towards the classroom and Louis thinks that yes, from an outsider’s perspective maybe it  _ does _ look as if they’re a couple, but really she doesn’t care.

Unlike the free-for-all that was media studies, in English class their teacher Miss Graves does at least make them get out their coursework, but the double period passes by without too much actual work being done and Miss Graves doesn’t seem to care much either.

Technically speaking they should now have lunch and then a double study period, but it’s well broadcasted that basically nobody in the sixth form has any intention of staying past the bell for lunch. So, when it trills out loud and shrill at midday, the entire room bursts into rapturous applause and cheers. Miss Graves stands at the door looking bewildered and tired as she wishes them all a good summer. Louis notices how she doesn’t bother to remind them to get some studying in; that’s an obvious lost cause. 

The five of them tumble out of the classroom, dashing towards the gates, desperate for six weeks of summer freedom. It’s then that they realise they’ve made no real plans for the rest of the day. 

“We can’t go to mine, Waliyha had all her screaming little brat friends over last night and they’re all still there, Dee just text me.” Zayn announces to the group.

Louis’ house is a no go zone too; she’s got four little sisters so their house is full enough already. Harry shrugs when they all look at her, and before Niall can come up with her excuses, Liam interrupts loudly.

“You lot are useless! We’ll go to mine, c’mon!”

  
  


They do a lot of their socialising at Liam’s house. Louis thinks that’s probably because Liam likes to be in control, but the fact that both of her sisters have left home and her parents are always out working all hours under the sun helps too.

They’re all gathered in Liam’s conservatory, three of them on one sofa and Louis and Harry together on the other. The July air is thick and heavy and it’s only made worse by the fact they’re sitting in a big glass box.

“Where the hell did you get that from?!” Liam is yelling, because Niall has just leaned down and produced half a bottle of Smirnoff from her bag. “Did you have that in your bag all day at school? Niall, you could’ve been expelled if they caught you with that! What the hell were you thinking?”

Niall doesn’t even afford Liam a response as she unscrews the cap off the bottle and knocks back a hearty swig.

“Zaynie,” She passes the bottle to Zayn next to her, who clearly doesn’t share Liam’s misgivings. “Good girl.”

Zayn then passes the bottle over the wicker coffee table to Harry. 

“Stop it!” Liam tries in vain to get them to stop, and Harry does have the decency to look at least a little bit apologetic as she takes a small sip.

“Relax Payno; half a bottle between all of us, there’s no chance of getting pissed on that!” Niall argues as Harry hands Louis the bottle.

“Fine,” Liam finally relents. “But you’re taking the empty bottle home with you. Don’t think you’re putting it in my recycling bin ‘cause you’re not!”

Louis bursts out laughing just as she tips the bottle to her lips. She splashes her mouthful down her front, soaking her school shirt so that the hot pink tank top she is wearing underneath shows through.

“Oh flippin’ ‘eck, look what you made me do!” She exclaims, taking a second more successful chug and placing the bottle down on the coffee table. She unbuttons her shirt and slips it off her shoulders.

“Wahey!” Niall whoops, bellowing out a rousing striptease jingle as Louis fondles her sodden chest. “Control yourself,  _ please _ Harry!”

“Shut up!” Both she and Louis exclaim at once, staring daggers at Niall who is still cackling. Niall swipes the bottle up and takes another sip, missing Liam all together.

  
  


Niall was right. Half a bottle of lukewarm backwashed vodka between the four of them isn’t enough to get them drunk but with her sides aching and her voice hoarse from laughing so hard, Louis feels pretty damn good.

She’s not even sure why they’re laughing now, but Harry is on the tiled floor of the conservatory with her hair splayed around her head like a halo, honking with laughter as Niall slaps the arm of the sofa, mouth wide open with silent laughter. Even the usually stoic Zayn and Liam are giggling.

Louis lifts her foot and rests it on the jut of Harry’s hip bone, just because it feels like the right thing to do.

“Oi! Stop, that hurts!” Harry groans from the floor, and she tries to shuck Louis’ foot off of her unsuccessfully. “Get me up off the floor.”

Louis hauls herself up to standing and steps over Harry, a foot on either side of her legs. She holds her hands out for Harry to take.

“I can see down your top,” Harry tells her proudly as she reaches up.

Louis rolls her eyes as Harry grabs hold. “Up you come, you big lump.”

“Oi!” Harry giggles, springing up like a little sprite. “Don’t call me a big lump.”

Well, maybe Niall was forgetting how much of a massive lightweight Harry is when she said that they wouldn’t get drunk on half a bottle. 

Liam has them clear out by ten past five, dashing around the place like a blue arsed fly because her mum will be home by half past and they and their alcohol absolutely can’t still be here when she arrives.

The four of them walk as far as the town centre and then Niall breaks off to head towards her house. The three of them remaining head out of town back down the hill towards the estate and that’s where they leave Zayn. Afterwards, when it’s just Louis and Harry, they link hands and walk closely side by side. They take the long way home, to give Harry time to come down from her hyper moment.

“What are you doing at the weekend?” Louis asks conversationally when they reach the end of the main road and cut across the big field that backs onto the houses.

“Dunno,” Harry sighs. “Got six weeks of weekend haven’t we. Got loads time to do nothing, sorta wanna do something though.”

“What about Thorpe Park or Alton Towers, or maybe Chessi-”

“Lou, those places are all a million miles away.” Harry stops her.

Louis opens her mouth to protest, and then she remembers. “Oh yeah. Maybe you’re right? Well… I dunno, what about swimming or cinema or shopping?”

“Swimming!” Harry suggests, her eyes lighting up at that idea. “I’ll text the others and see if they’re up for it.”

Louis grimaces as Harry pulls out her phone and starts messaging everyone. She’s not sure why the hell she suggested swimming because she bloody hates stripping down to her cossie and showing off her small boobs and disproportionately large thighs and arse. Unfortunately though, that’s exactly what she finds herself doing the next afternoon.

Zayn’s perfect skin is effortless, Liam’s not got an ounce of fat on her and Niall just exudes confidence. Harry’s legs go on for days and even though she’s pale her skin is consistently pale, not like the darker patches and red bumps that Louis has.

“Ready, Lou?” Harry turns to face her, arms currently above her head in the middle of tying her massive hairdo back into a bun. Louis pushes her self-consciousness to the back of her head where it belongs and nods. Harry smiles broadly. “Good girl.”

  
  


Really, as soon as they’re in the water it doesn’t matter what their bodies look like anyway. Liam and Harry take the steps down into the water and Niall jumps straight into the shallow end with a large splash. Louis sits down next to Zayn on the edge of the pool, covering her belly with her arms as she submerges her legs in the cool turquoise water up to mid-calf.

“All right, Lou?” Zayn checks in with her before shimmying off the edge. She dunks her shoulders under the water and then pops back up, droplets running off her warm toned skin. “Come on, it’s lush in here.”

Louis plops awkwardly into the water without allowing herself to overthink it any more. She wades through the water towards where Niall is gliding through the water in circles, her blonde hair dark now it’s wet. Harry and Liam are bobbing around aimlessly, talking about something or other. Louis can’t help but notice that neither of their messy topknots are wet yet, and well, she has to rectify that.

“Oi oi!” She yells, cupping her hands and shoving two palmfuls of pool water at her friends.

“For fuck’s sake, Lou!” Liam yelps as Harry shrieks, attracting the attention of the lifeguard. The five of them fall about in fits of giggles and then disperse. 

An hour and a half in the pool passes by quickly, and by the time they’re ready to get out Louis has been dunked six times, given Harry three underwater piggybacks and won three out of four relays from one side of the pool to the other.

They separate into separate cubicles to change. This is definitely the worst part of swimming, peeling soggy swimwear off your clammy, mottled body and chlorine water dripping down your back once you finally squeeze your clammy, mottled body back into clothes again.

“Hey Lou,” Harry is the first and only one to greet Louis as she wanders out of her cubicle ten minutes later, feeling uncomfortable in her jeans that she couldn’t quite get all the way up her cold thighs. Harry doesn’t look like she’s struggled with her own jeans at all. “Walk home with me? This lot have all got plans.”

Louis pretends to be outraged and laughs as she agrees with Harry’s request. They all file out of the leisure centre and then go their separate ways; Harry and Louis heading back towards town together.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Harry muses.

“Yeah,” Louis agrees, deciding not to turn things into a body image related pity party. “Yeah it was fun.”

Harry gives her a big grin and slips her arm through Louis’ as they head towards the high street. “Coming back to mine? Gems and mum will be out.”

Louis smiles too, nodding as Harry turns to her with a mischievous grin on her face and an eyebrow wiggle. 

  
  


Louis wakes at about half past five on Sunday morning to light streaming in through her thin lilac curtains. It hadn’t been too late when she got back from Harry’s yesterday, about quarter past eleven. Harry’s mum Anne had done them a couple of frozen pizzas and a big bowl of popcorn and they’d ended up spending most of the rest of the day watching films. 

Even though it was a quiet one, Louis still feels absolutely shattered this morning, like she’s had no sleep. But despite all of this, she sees six AM and seven too, finally falling back to sleep at about quarter to eight. It’s red hot and almost one PM when she wakes again. 

Groaning because her head feels groggy and her back is aching, Louis hauls herself out of bed and downstairs. The twins are out in the garden being noisy and there’s no sign of the older two.

“Oh, welcome back to the land of the living!” Jay exclaims upon spotting her. “Nice of you to finally join us!”

Louis rolls her eyes, smiling sarcastically. “You’re really hilarious, mum.”

“Yes, and what are you doing in my kitchen, do you need feeding? I am doing the girls sandwiches, want one?”

Louis nods gratefully. “Please.”

She chats idly with her mum as she prepares the mountain of sandwiches, all with different fillings and amounts of butter on each slice. It turns out Lottie has gone bowling with a few friends from school and Fizzy has actually been up in her room this whole time. The second oldest sibling plus the two youngest turn up and they all have lunch together, squabbling over who sits where at the table. 

With her cheese sandwich in one hand and phone in the other, Louis blocks out all of the noise and concentrates on the screen. 

Until recently, she’d been using the ancient old laptop to talk to girls on MSN; paranoia absolutely killing her at every turn when the computer was in  _ anyone _ else’s possession, even though she was sure to clear the search history and log out after every turn. She lived in fear of one of her little sisters stumbling across something they shouldn’t.

But for her birthday she’d  _ finally _ got a BlackBerry and moved on to a slightly more hi-tech method of exchanging pleasantries with girls; BBM. 

She learned long ago to keep her phone on silent; she’s sure it’s not  _ not _ -obvious what she’s doing but she doesn’t need it publically acknowledged. Over the past few months her number of contacts has grown substantially - that’s what posting your BlackBerry Messenger PIN on your Facebook, MSN and the LGBT sub-section of teen forums will do.

There are girls that are probably real, girls that are probably fake and a few of her actual real life friends in between. Half of the girls are under the impression Louis is 21 not 17 anyway, so she doesn’t feel too concerned about the fact that she doesn’t really know who she’s talking to.

“Louis, put your phone down!” Jay chastises her weakly, just to appease Lottie who is whining about something not being fair. 

“I’m goin’ to my room.” Louis says, standing up from the table and leaving her plate of crusts behind.

“That’s not what I meant, love!” Jay calls but she just shrugs and carries on anyway. 

For the next hour or so she has three conversations on the go, petering out to two and then just the one. Then, a text from Harry pops up and she exits BBM immediately to read it.

**Hazzy:** _ Thinking about taking up jogging. What do u reckon? Xxx _

_ ‘Yeh wouldn’t miss it for the world! Xxx’ _

Louis follows up her sarcastic reply with a row of LOL’s. It’s not that Harry won’t take up running, it’s just that she’s renowned for being the queen of the fad; she gets bored of something before she’s even started it so Louis doesn’t worry too much about having to  _ actually _ indulge Harry in her latest craze.

  
  


The end of the first week of the summer holidays rolls around too quickly, and it’s been fairly innocuous so far. Louis’ taken her sisters to the park, she’s been into town with Niall, Harry and twenty quid, and she’s done the big shop with mum while the girls spent the weekend with their dad. 

Harry is still dead set on starting jogging, and of course Louis is powerless to reject her best friend. That’s how she finds herself up at the arse crack of dawn on Monday morning, pulling on black Puma trackies and a white t-shirt.

“Bloody hell,” Jay remarks with a bewildered smirk as Louis staggers into the kitchen, zombie-like. “What’s happened?”

“Shut up,” Louis mumbles, going to the fridge and drinking milk straight from the carton. “I’m going jogging with Haz.”

Jay’s smirk grows exponentially. “Wow. She’s got you going jogging? It must be love!”

Louis doesn’t stop to correct her mum or ask her just exactly what she thinks she is playing at. 

“You’re certainly well suited to the jogger lifestyle, with that collection of tracksuit bottoms in your wardrobe.”

Louis rolls her eyes as she puts the lid back on the milk and clunks the fridge door closed. “I’m going now. Don’t know when I’ll be back, might pack up a lung and die while I’m out and then you’ll never see me again, so think of that.”

“I’ll send out a search party if you’re not home by dusk!” Jay says, getting up and sashaying across the kitchen in her dressing gown. “See you later on, love. Be safe.”

Louis gives her mum a one armed hug, squirming as she kisses her cheek, and then disappears out the door. Yes so maybe she doesn’t look too different than normal in her joggers, t-shirt and trainers but who cares? 

Harry is perky and enthusiastic when they meet up, and Louis sort of wants to punch her.

“Morning!” She chirps, and Louis grunts in response. “All right? You ready?”

Louis doesn’t respond, just watches in a curious blend of bemusement and irritation as Harry begins stretching; catching her foot behind her and then dipping forward in a series of lunges.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Louis murmurs as Harry extends her right arm across her chest to the left, stretching her fingertips wide. “We’re really bloody doing this.”

“Yes!” Harry yelps as she drops her arms to her sides and starts shaking them loose. “C’mon, you might want to do some stretches too else it’s gonna be painful.”

Louis rolls her eyes and tries to protest but eventually Harry gets her doing some half-hearted lunges and stretches too. She feels ridiculous doing it, but to her surprise they’re far from the only ones here doing the exact same thing, and to tell the truth they probably don’t actually stand out that much.

“Ready then?” Harry asks, obviously deeming Louis stretched enough to begin jogging. “I was thinking if we just follow the path around, seems the easiest way.”

Louis blanches. “All the way round?” She verifies. The park that they’ve come to is huge; she’s walked around it with her mum and the twins and it took over an hour. The path meanders around a large lake, through large clumps of trees and there’s even a little bridge over the water.

“Yeah. We can always stop if we need to.”

They will need to, Louis is sure of it. Nevertheless, she nods and follows Harry as she slowly breaks into a light jog. Jogging a little bit quicker to keep up with Harry, Louis has to wonder what the hell she has got herself into.

They make it about a quarter of the way round before Harry grinds them to a halt, and not a moment too soon as far as Louis is concerned. She’s unflatteringly sweaty and red in the face, but somehow her best friend is still perfectly serene and composed. 

“How, are you not, dying?” Louis asks between deep breaths. “I am knackered!”

Harry cackles. “We’re not even half way round yet, love.”

Louis gasps for air, leaning forward and propping herself up on her thighs. She can see blotches in front of her eyes. “Is this supposed to be fun? You can come by yourself next time!”

“What if I get kidnapped?” Harry asks with mock indignation.

Louis straightens up and shrugs, earning her a clap around the arm from Harry. Perhaps as punishment for her remark, Harry starts up their jogging again. Louis has no choice but to follow her, dashing to catch up and then falling into a regular pace next to Harry.

At the halfway point, or thereabouts, they stop again. Harry has Louis stretching her arms above her head and shaking out her legs before they set off again. Louis had wondered what they would talk about as they went round, but in actual fact she’s far too out of breath for any conversing. 

Louis wants to ask Harry to stop again about two hundred feet later, and her pride is the only thing that stops her. She keeps going, managing to keep up with Harry even though she’s starting to get a stitch in her side. There are swans to their left, twisting their long necks right around to smooth down their feathers and Louis thinks about how strange it would be to have a neck long and bendy enough to be able to lick your own bum.

She snorts with laughter and Harry’s head whips up, seeking her out with a curious look. She doesn’t stop running. Louis just shakes her head; the prospect of trying to coordinate her balance and breathing while explaining what she was laughing at is too much to comprehend.

Finally, when they wrap back around to where they started Harry stops running. Louis runs towards the fence, letting her body slam against the railings. She hangs her head over the other side while she gets her breath back, holding the position for a few moments until Harry sidles up alongside her.

“Don’t pack up a lung on me,” Harry murmurs, and Louis’ smiles at the echoing of her own previous sentiments. “I can’t carry you all the way to the hospital.”

Louis glowers up at her, still leaning over the railings. “You’d call an ambulance to do that, you tit.”

“Would I?” Harry asks, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She wiggles her eyebrows and bites the tip of her tongue between her front teeth. Louis elbows her and she cries out dramatically.

Harry has to practically prop Louis up as they move to vacate the park, and on the way back they pool their change together to fund a confectionery lunch which  _ really _ negates the running they’ve just done.

  
  


Louis gets away with no jogging on Tuesday, but on Wednesday they’re back at it again. Harry even has new Nike’s. By Friday, Louis is sort of,  _ just  _ about enjoying herself, so it’s typical that as they’re just nearing the final stretch, Harry screeches to a halt, flings her arms up in the air and makes a declaration.

“I don’t like jogging anymore!”

Louis staggers to a stop too, turning around with the intention of glaring at her friend, but then Harry is bent double gasping as if she’s just been shot, and when she straightens up she’s pouting exaggeratedly and Louis can’t help but burst out laughing.

“A week!” Louis exclaims. “Jogging lasted a  _ week _ ! And how much did your mum pay for those trainers?”

“Shut up!” Harry mumbles embarrassedly. “I can still wear them!”

They finish up their circuit with a slow amble back to the park gates, chatting and laughing (once they’ve got their breath back) about all sorts of rubbish. Just as they’re nearing town and the point where they can either go their separate ways or go off together, both of their phones simultaneously ding in their bra cups.

Louis shamelessly digs hers out and rolls her eyes at Niall’s message, Harry snorting at presumably the same message.

**Nialler:** _Alright lovebirds when ya finished running in2 the sunset 2gether come to mine. Got a free house xx_

“Looks like that’s the afternoon’s plans taken care of!” Harry remarks as they ignore Niall’s jibe and pocket their phones. Arm in arm they head down the high street towards Niall’s house.

  
  


Niall is not dressed when they arrive. She’s got leggings on but she’s still in her pyjama top, unless frilly pink t-shirts with ‘I need my beauty sleep’ on are the new trend. 

They all file up to Niall’s bedroom, the two guests perching on the edge of the bed whilst Niall parades around in and out of the room, returning with various implements and items of clothing before coming in for the final time, topless with her hands just about covering her modesty.

“Oh Jesus, Niall!” Louis exclaims, her jaw dropping open as she registers her friend’s state of undress.

“Oh give over, you two love tits!” Niall cries flippantly, and Louis can see Harry is desperate to correct all the things wrong with Niall’s statement, but she doesn’t.

Niall continues to mumble nonsensically as she turns her back to them and clasps her bra together, eventually slipping a white vest top over her head and declaring herself almost ready. Louis and Harry stay perched on the edge of Niall’s bed as they wait for her to pull her denim shorts over her leggings and pull her long blonde hair into a messy updo. 

“Right!” Niall declares with a clap of her hands. “I am ready. You two ready?”

“Yeah,” Louis answers for them. “Where are we going? When you said you ‘ad a free house I thought-”

“You know what thinking did, don’t you Lou? It killed the cat.” Niall says, and again Harry clearly wants to correct her. “All you need to do is drink, not think!” She says, eyes lighting up when she realises. “Oh my God, that rhymed!”

Niall pulls open the drawers next to her bed and from inside a Tampax Compak box she produces a small bottle of vodka. Her grin is wide and wicked as she wiggles the bottle. “Party time!”

They take the vodka to the garden, via the kitchen to get Fanta and Coke, and knock back just enough between the three of them to get them giggly and loud. After that they eat their weight in Asda brand crisps from the cupboard and then leave Niall’s house – more hyper than tipsy now – and head for the park. 

Liam and Zayn and then Ed and Nick join them and soon their booze buzz becomes a sugar rush as they gobble down sweets and fizzy drinks, throw themselves around in the grass squealing and generally being a nuisance. Later on when the weather is a little cooler and the play park has cleared out a little, they take over the swings. With Niall atop his shoulders, Ed climbs onto the swing; they barely last a full minute before toppling off. 

Nick takes the swing next to them, standing on the seat. His six foot plus lanky frame fills the space between the metal chains, his stupid hairdo almost reaching the top bar. Louis watches him from where she is sat, her heart quickly plummeting through her chest towards her tummy as Harry, in all her big-haired glory, goes running over to Nick and grabbing hold of the chains.

She clambers onto the swing too, slotting her feet between Nick’s gargantuan Converse. She crowds his space and he has to lean back to accommodate her. Harry steadies herself on both feet and then leans back too, her knuckles turning white as she grips the chains tightly.

Louis’ heart is in her mouth as she watches them fail spectacularly at working together to swing themselves back and forth. Harry yelps and Nick’s own head is thrown back laughing. Louis can see Harry precariously rearrange her footing and if she was gripping any tighter her hands would probably meld right into the chain.

Louis scrambles to her feet before she can stop herself. “All right you two, stop being stupid now. If one of you falls-”

“Aw, is little Lou-Lou getting jealous? Don’t worry, your precious cargo is safe with Nicky-G!” Niall exclaims loudly, drawing everyone’s attention in. Louis’ cheeks flame red immediately, but someone who’s more red-faced than her, is Nick.

“Shut up, I’m not jealous, why would I be jealous?” Louis tries to argue. Thankfully everyone else quickly reverts back to what they were doing so it’s only Niall that’s really listening now.

She shrugs with a knowing grin. “Nick’s gay, Lou, you know that don’t you?”

Louis shrinks down immediately. She can’t believe she didn’t realise sooner. It seems obvious now; Nick’s delicate and guarded way of carrying himself around school, the attentive touches and the soft smiles.

“Good for him. Not like it matters though. I’m not arsed either way, Nialler.” Louis tries to brush it off, hoping the tremble in her voice doesn’t give her away but it’s clear as day in her own ears. 

Mercifully, Niall doesn’t pressure her any more. She takes her hand, pulls her over towards the roundabout and plonks her down. Niall puts one foot on the roundabout and spins them around, shrieking and whooping for joy as they gather momentum but Louis feels a bit sick to be honest; a combination of the drink, sweets and something else deep in her belly that she tries her best to ignore.

“Stop!” She exclaims, blaming her nausea on the roundabout. “I’m gonna throw up, stop spinning us!”

The scuff of the sole of Niall’s trainers slows them down gradually, and she throws herself onto the floor as she steps off the roundabout. She rolls across the grass, laughing her head off as she comes to a stop, taking Liam down with her.

“Niall, get off!” Liam shrieks, but then Harry goes running over and throws herself into the pile of bodies, Ed and Nick joining the massive bundle of limbs on the grass too.

Louis joins Zayn, standing to the side watching their idiot friends all piled on top of each other digging their elbows and knees into each other’s sides and screaming unnecessarily. 

“You lot are actual toddlers, I swear!” Zayn comments drily as Niall grabs hold of Zayn’s leg to pull herself free from the tangle of bodies.

Liam springs up, smoothing her hair and adjusting her top. “God sake, Nialler, I wish you wouldn’t do things like that!”

“Oh lighten up, Payno, it’s called having fun, you should try it sometime!”

“I am plenty of fun!” Liam protests, and almost everyone bursts out laughing, save for Louis who doesn’t feel much in the joking mood all of a sudden.

“Oi, leave her alone.”

“Ooh, sorry!” Ed jokes loudly, before adding inappropriately and inaccurately, “You on your period or summat?”

“Fuck off, Ed,” Louis shoots back, feeling embarrassed at the attention that is now on her. “I’m looking out for my mates, is all!” 

“They don’t need babysitting, Louis. Especially not Harry.”

Louis’ face twists up into frustrated confusion. “What the hell are you on about, mate?”

“You!” Ed laughs. Louis hates him. “You’re so blatantly jealous of anyone who so much as  _ looks _ at Harry!”

“Am I fuck!” Louis argues. “She’s my best mate but I don’t control her!”

“Yeah okay!” Ed scoffs sarcastically, and Louis’ blood is now boiling with anger.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Not my fault you lot seem to be obsessed with the idea of me and her!”

“You’re the one who’s obsessed! And you think you hide it well? You love the hold you have over her, you fucking lap it up, don’t you! All that attention on you when people ask if you’re going out together, that’s some sick fantasy for you isn’t it!”

“You don’t-”

Ed cuts her off. “You don’t see the look on your face when anyone else dares talk to Harry, but if you could it’d be a big fucking wake up call, Louis! Even Nick, who’s fucking gay! He’s gay and you still get jealous, you’re a jealous little bitch.” 

“Ed, knock it off, mate yeah?” Nick tries to stop Ed, but he’s on a roll now and it’s no use.

“No, she fucking needs to hear this! None of you other dickheads are big up enough to do it!” Ed continues ruthlessly. “What’s the matter, Louis? You can dish it out Louis, but you’re not prepared to take it, is that it? All mouth and no fucking balls?”

“Come on you two, stop it yeah?” Niall tries to intervene this time, but Ed just seems even more revved up.

“Guess what, Louis? Harry wouldn’t go out with you, ever, even if there were no other girls in the world! She’s worth a million times more than you could  _ ever _ give her; she’s not interested! Your weird obsession with her is pathetic.”

The word is like a punch; it hangs dark and ugly in the air between them.

“Ed!” Harry yelps weakly, but again it’s a fruitless effort. 

“You don’t even know what you’re on about!” Louis fights back weakly. She’s losing her resolve. “Because you’d never have a cat in hell’s chance with her, is that it? It’s you that’s jealous, ‘cause Harry actually likes me!”

Ed scoffs again in the otherwise tense silence. “Jealous? Of a little bitch like you? Get real, Louis.”

“Ed, stop it!” Harry begs, both hands in her hair tugging in despair as she watches the scene unfold. “Please!”

“Fucking-” Ed doesn't finish his sentence. He swats in his hand in Harry’s direction, making her flinch.

“Are you done?” Louis chokes out, embarrassment making her cheeks hot and her stomach twist.

“Yeah, I’m fucking done!” Ed spits, turning his back on her and kicking at the grass with a growl.

Everyone just sort of stands there; shell shocked - even Nick and his fat mouth are stunned into silence. 

“Fuck it!” She proclaims, trying to sound forceful whilst keeping her tears at bay. “Thanks for fucking nothing you lot, and fuck you, Ed, you massive ginger prick.”

It’s petty and ridiculous, but it feels like all she has.

“Fuck off! Walk away you fat bitch!” Ed shouts back, equally as childishly.

Louis retreats quickly, both offended and glad that no one follows her. The tears spill freely and she struggles to see the ground beneath her feet as she stumbles away from the absolute uproar that has erupted behind her. Arguments break out from all angles like fireworks.

All Louis knows is she has to get away from here and she has to get away now. 

  
  


Louis’ calmed down by the time she gets home; her tears are now dried tracks on her cheeks. It’s anger that she feels now.

Her mum is in the kitchen sitting at the table when she bursts in the door. Jay jumps up in surprise and confusion as she takes in Louis’ fixed expression and aggressive door slam.

“Lou, what’s the matter? Was jogging  _ that _ bad?” She’s obviously going for jokes, but Louis is in no mood and Hay’s face straightens out when she realises. “What’s happened, love?”

“Ed!” Louis seethes. “He thinks he’s so funny! In front of everyone he just- God, he thinks he’s so bloody funny talking that shit in front of everyone like that!”

“What? What happened, Lou? Who’s Ed and what did he say?”

“We went to Niall’s after jogging and then we all ended up in the park with the lads. Ed, he’s- God he’s Niall’s stupid friend. He thinks he’s so funny making smart comments about Harry and me and is all like  _ ‘why you so moody, you on your period? _ ’ urgh he’s just a twat!”

Jay looks confused and a bit surprised but just nods along as Louis continues.

“He had to do it in front of everyone, didn’t he?! All I did was tell them to stop winding Liam up, and the next minute it’s all blowing up in my face!”

“He just sound like a pathetic, immature little boy, love. You don’t need to waste any of your energy on him.”

“I hate him!”

“I hate him too, babe.” Jay sympathises, pulling Louis in for a cuddle. She cradles the back of her head and shushes her. “Are you all right now?”

“Yeah,” Louis nods eventually, deciding that as her mum hasn’t asked, she won’t tell what the cause for Ed’s outburst was. “Just wanna get into bed and stay there for the rest of the weekend.”

Jay smiles as she shrugs her shoulders. “I can’t see a problem with that.”

  
  


Friday ends with seven unanswered messages in her inbox from Niall, Liam and Harry alike. She notices Zayn’s radio silence and remembers it. She stays up until gone one talking to a girl called Emily on BBM and falls asleep with her phone still in her hand. 

She gets two more messages from Harry overnight, and one from Liam too.

**Hazzy:** _ Louis please don’t ignore me all weekend. And please don’t listen to anything Ed said he’s just an idiot. Im so sorry babes. Are you okay? xxxxx _

**Hazzy:** _ Louis ?????? _

**Li:** _ Lou pls don’t ignore Haz. We r all sorry bout Ed hes a dickhead with a fat gob n what he was saying was shit anyway xxx _

Initially Louis wants to be petulant and ignore them both, but after ten minutes or so of deliberating she sends a quick message to assure Harry she’s fine, just to shut her up.

Louis’ plans to stay in bed all weekend don’t quite come to fruition, but she does stay at home all weekend, only crossing the threshold of the back door to put some jars and a pizza box in the recycling bin on Sunday evening.

  
  


Monday soon comes around again. All four of Louis’ sisters are spending the week with their dad, and although she is always invited along to spend time with him too Louis always declines. He’s not her real dad, not like the other four, and it’s only been two years since he broke her mum’s heart. Louis is the only one who’s not over it yet. Lots of things have been said and so many tears shed, and Louis’ not mature enough to deal with it yet.

So, she stays at home. Mum is back at work after taking the first two weeks off and the silence in the house is almost eerie when Louis crawls out of bed and downstairs at half past ten. That’s why when someone knocks the door at quarter past eleven she just about jumps out of her skin.

Louis creeps down the hall towards the door, seeing a familiar shadow behind the frosted glass. Before she can start conjuring up scenes of a horrific mutilation at the hands of a serial killer, she recognises the shape behind the glass.

It’s Harry. Her hands go clammy. She almost turns around and pretends she hasn’t heard the door, but at the last minute she changes her mind.

She puts on a false breeziness as she opens the door. “Hazza, what you doing here?”

“I came to check you were okay, Lou. That message yesterday pretending to be fine; what the hell was that?”

“I am fine, Haz,” Louis says, stepping aside so Harry can come in. “Shut the door please?”

Louis turns her back on Harry and wanders back into the living room. She curls back up on the sofa under her duvet cover and Harry follows, sitting down on the opposite side of the room. She perches right on the edge of the cushion, her knees together and her hands clasped in her lap.

“I’m sorry that Ed said all that shit. You didn’t deserve that.”

Louis shrugs, feeling a lot braver now than she did on Friday, the last time she was with Harry. She wanted to cry then. Well, she did cry.

“Doesn’t matter,” Louis shrugs, trying to look unaffected. “It’s not like it’s the first time someone’s had a pop at me. And it’s not like it’s the first time someone has given me shit over our friendship is it?”

“No,” Harry agrees, and her eyes shift guiltily. “But just so you know, I don’t agree with what Ed said. You don’t control me. I don’t feel like that at all.”

“Good,” Louis says quietly. “I’m glad.”

She’s also glad that they’re apparently not addressing the other issues either; what Ed said about her being jealous of the people around Harry, his implications about what her so-called ‘jealousy’ means.

“And he’s got no right to call you a bitch; that was out of order. I smacked him, y’know? Right on his stupid arm, for being such a knob.”

Louis snorts. “Thank you.”

They return to a strange sort of equilibrium after that. Things don’t feel completely resolved, mainly because Louis is still absolutely seething with Ed and also slightly with the rest of the girls for letting it happen so freely. Whether that is unreasonable or not, Louis doesn’t care right now.

Harry stays for most of the day, eventually migrating over to Louis’s sofa and getting under the duvet with her. They sit happily through Lorraine, Loose Women and Dickinson’s Real Deal, despite all of those shows being absolute crap.  It probably helps they’re not actually watching them. 

Harry is still there when Louis’ mum gets home from work, and Jay is so pleased to see her she foregoes greeting Louis entirely, in favour of scooping Harry up into a big cuddle and asking her how her mum is and how her summer is going so far. She invites her to stay for tea too, and the three of them eat on their laps in front of the telly. Jay drives Harry home at about quarter to ten and then afterwards she swings the car into Asda car park.

“What we doing here?” Louis asks in confusion.

“C’mon!” Jay says briskly, grabbing her bag from the passenger side footwell and cracking open the door. “Let’s get some sweets and have a girly movie night!”

Her mum looks so excited for their plans that Louis doesn’t even bother pointing out that it’s already gone ten.

  
  


Though she’d never admit it out loud, Louis is sort of missing her sisters by mid-week. It’s so quiet in the house, and it’s  _ boring _ , and since Harry is the only friend she’s speaking to at the moment, when she’s busy Louis is left with nobody. 

On Wednesday morning, after a breakfast of peanut butter and Nutella on toast, Louis slowly climbs the stairs to her room and decides she’s going to tidy up.

But as she stands in the doorway staring at the mess she wonders what the hell she’s got herself into. It had seemed like a good idea, ten minutes ago when she was snuggly wrapped up on the sofa with her toast. Still, never one to back down from a challenge she steps inside, throws a window open, turns the speaker on her phone right the way up and presses play.

The first thing to do is strip the bed; she’s been sleeping with these covers on since before school broke up and it’s kind of disgusting now. She dumps the discarded bed linens outside the door where hopefully her mum will collect them and return them magically washed and sweet smelling.

After the struggle that is re-making the bed, Louis takes all of the clothes piled up on her desk chair and moves them to the bed. A lot of it can be put on hangers and put away, so that clears a big chunk. The Puma bottoms from last weeks’ ill-advised jogging trip are still on the floor so she grabs those and chucks them outside along with the rest of the dirty clothes and bedding. 

She finds a shameful amount of crisp packets down the side of her bedside table, and on a trip downstairs to the kitchen to dispose of the evidence she grabs the hoover and the air freshener.

She’s more or less finished when her music stops playing mid-song. She stops singing abruptly and glances over to seek out the source of the disruption, and her phone is illuminated with a message from her best friend.

**Hazzy:** _ You up to much? Can I come round? Xx _

Louis quickly agrees, of course, and after five or ten minutes or so there is a knocking on the door downstairs. She heaves herself off her freshly made bed and staggers downstairs to the door. She can see Harry and her huge, untamed hair through the frosted panel of glass in the door.

She pulls the door open, leaning her cheek against the cool glass panel as she spots them. The  _ others _ . 

“You devious cow,” Louis mutters at Harry with narrow eyes as Liam, Zayn and Niall all sheepishly slink into the house. They go via the kitchen upstairs to Louis’ room, glasses of orange squash in hand.

“I see Jay’s been busy,” Harry remarks when they step into Louis’ tidy room.

“Oi, this was all my doing, I’ll have you know!” She corrects Harry, and is greeted by four disbelieving faces.

Liam sits down on the floor against the wall, Harry takes the desk chair that an hour ago was piled high with clothes, and Louis and the other two all squeeze onto the bed. It’s awkward for a beat or two, nobody quite knowing where or how to start, so Louis decides she’ll save them the embarrassment.

“Come on you lot, lighten up a bit! What’s done is done, yeah? I’m over it so you lot should be too!” 

It’s not entirely true, but it’s good enough for now and it helps the energy dissipate so everything can go back to being a bit more normal. They talk a bit about the upcoming year and then very loosely about their plans for after sixth form. Louis knows at least two of the others have semi-serious sights set on going to uni, but she doesn’t want to think about that right now. 

A little while later, when she’s coming out the loo, Niall corners her. Louis knew it was coming, she just didn’t know when. She shouldn’t have let her guard down.

“Sorry, Lou,” Niall says, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m the one that brought Ed into the group so I feel like it’s my fault he was a dick to you. I’ve told him I think he is well out of order, and Harry did too.”

_ You’re also the one who goes on about me and Harry all the time, _ Louis thinks but doesn’t say. Instead, she accepts Niall’s apology. “It’s all right, Ni. It’s not like I’ve never had some pissed off bloke shouting at me before.”

Niall shakes her head. “I know you were upset. You can lie to me all you like, Tommo, but you’re not fooling me. Ed’s a knob but one day he’ll grow up.”

“It’s all right, Nialler, honestly. Yeah, it was stupid or whatever but it’s okay. I’m not mad at you.” Niall smiles in relief, so Louis decides to add, “Anymore.”

Niall wails loudly and thumps her arm. “Shut up!”

Louis giggles as she leads Niall back to her bedroom. “C’mon, you fucking weirdo.”

  
  


Lottie and Fizzy and the twins come back from Mark’s on Sunday –  _ finally _ , though Louis  _ didn’t _ say that - and everything goes back to normal. Louis has her friends back and her sisters back and even the sun has come back after a few very grey and windy days.

The end of summer break is fast approaching already, far too soon for Louis’ liking but there are still plenty of distractions and procrastination to keep her mind off it for now. It’s Liam’s birthday next week and Niall’s mid-September birthday is deemed close enough to warrant a joint birthday party - that and the fact that it was the only way they could convince Liam people would  _ actually _ show up.

So that’s Saturday taken care of, Louis just has to get there first.

Nothing much happens on Monday but on Tuesday Louis wakes to a text from Liam asking if she’ll meet her after her job interview. Louis didn’t even know Liam  _ had _ a job interview, but she agrees and spends the next few minutes lying in bed with her eyes closed trying to remember if she missed Liam mentioning this job interview before. 

She meets Liam in town, only ten minutes later than agreed. Liam is sitting on a bench looking paradoxically smart in black trousers and a nice blouse with a denim jacket over the top. She gets to her feet as Louis approaches.

Liam smiles timidly as they make their greetings and then arm in arm they start walking back through town, heading towards Greggs without needing to confer; it’s just a given. 

“Did you, uh- I didn’t know you had a job interview?”

“No, I didn’t say anything,” Liam says offhandedly, and Louis silently thanks her lucky stars; she’s not a terrible friend after all. “I didn’t want everyone to know if I embarrassed myself tanking the interview.” 

_ Such _ a Liam thing to do; Louis’ heart hurts a little. “Well, how did it go? What is the job?”

Liam shrugs. “It went okay I think. I can’t really tell. Never done this before have I?”

Louis supposes that’s true. None of them, with the exception of Niall when her brother used to give her a cut of his wages to do the drop offs when he had a job delivering for Pizza Go-Go, have had jobs yet. 

“And what’s it doing?” She asks again, because Liam missed – or avoided – the question earlier.

“Oh just uh, just in an office.” Liam says breezily and quickly. Louis frowns in confusion. 

“What do you mean in an office? You can’t have an office job, Payno, we’re still in sixth form.”

“I know, it’s uh, it’s just on Saturdays?” Liam replies, but she doesn’t sound convinced. Louis’ frown deepens.

“I didn’t think offices opened on a Saturday? Is it a call centre?”

Liam blanches. “No! You have to be eighteen to work in them I think.”

“So what is it then? Come on, why’re you being so secretive?”

“It’s just a stupid job, I probably won’t even get it, it doesn’t matter. It’s… it’s a cleaning job, okay? It’s stupid, don’t laugh.”

Louis mistimes her steps as she realises the reason for Liam’s reluctance. “Li, are you ashamed? Payno there’s nothing to be embarrassed about! A job’s a job, mate!”

Liam’s cheeks are red and she slips her arm free from Louis’ and covers her face with her hands. “Well! It’s not exactly a cool job is it, cleaning?”

“Liam!” Louis yelps. “Stop that, stop that right now! You’re gonna smash that cleaning job, mate!”

“I haven’t even got the job yet, Lou!” Liam points out, but it’s obvious she’s having a hard time keeping the smile off her face. “Let’s just wait and see before getting excited, okay?”

“Okay!” Louis agrees reluctantly, before tacking on, “You’re still gonna smash it, though.”

  
  


They take their sausage rolls to the park, settling on the grass underneath some trees.  Within a few minutes Liam is stretching out her legs and pulling up her trousers to reveal her lily white legs. 

“God it’s warm isn’t it?” Liam muses. She squints up at the sky and then down at the grass, ripping a handful of blades out of the mud and letting them flutter out of her hand. “I’ll be happy when it’s autumn again. Or even winter.”

Louis watches her best friend carefully. “Liam?” She asks. “Why are you so nervous?”

“I’m not!” Liam cries defensively. “I’m fine, just chatting about the weather. It’s what British people do, right?”

Louis gives her a look. “Why are you acting weird? What’s the matter?”

Liam’s shoulders sag as she gives up her resolve. “I still feel really bad about what Ed said to you, Lou. You were defending me and I did nothin’ to step in when he turned on you. I feel so bad.”

“Ah, forget about that now, Payno, honestly!” Louis tries to be dismissive, to reassure Liam. “It’s not a big deal, it’s not like I haven’t been called a bitch before.”

Liam looks suitably uncomfortable. “No, not… not just that. What he said about Harry.”

Louis’ heart sinks. She’d successfully avoided this topic and any implication of it up until this point, so to have it dragged through the mud once again is far from ideal. 

“I don’t want you to think that you’re not good enough for her, or for anyone for that matter.” Liam continues rambling, unaware that every word is like fingers down a chalkboard for Louis. She cringes and tries to get Liam to stop, to no avail. “No Lou, listen. You’re my best friend, you always help me and you’re always there for me, and with Ed I wasn’t there for you so now I am. You deserve someone special and there’s no reason why you’re not good enough for Harry, and I know that Harry wouldn’t  _ ever _ think things like that.”

Liam means well, is the thing, but she has no idea that her words are so far from what Louis wants to hear it’s not even funny. 

“Li, I appreciate it, I really do, but me and Hazza are literally  _ not _ together. In any form.”

Liam seems to consider this, like it’s opinion rather than fact. “Well, that doesn’t matter,” Liam continues, but it  _ does _ matter to Louis. It’s a very important distinction. “What I just said is still true and I don’t think you realise that. And that makes me a shit friend for not sticking up for you.”

Louis frowns again. “Liam, I told you you don’t need to worry, okay? Ed’s a twat and we all know it, but it’s whatever. I don’t care what he thinks about me.”

She purposely doesn’t add ‘or Harry’ on the end, and happily Liam takes the hint. They finish up their sausage rolls in silence; Louis doesn’t really have the stomach for hers anymore. 

Thankfully Niall texts Liam a little while later, asking what she’s up to, and invites herself along so there are no more awkward silences. Niall either doesn’t notice Liam’s formal attire or she doesn’t care, and Louis isn’t sure which one it is.

“Where are the other two?” Niall asks, because apparently that’s all anyone cares about now. 

“Does it matter? Zayn and Harry aren’t here but me and Liam are, isn’t that good enough for you?” Louis asks, the elastic band of her tolerance well and truly snapped. 

Liam’s eyes widen in surprise and Niall head snaps up, a quizzical smile on her face because although she clearly wasn’t expecting that reaction. It quickly fades when she realises Louis isn’t joking. 

“Fuck me, Tommo, what’s up with you?” Niall glares at her. 

“Nothin’,” Louis tries to shrug it off, regretting opening her mouth because she just doesn’t have the strength to fight. “Forget it. Sorry, whatever.”

“What’s the matter, you and Harry had a spat, a lovers’ tiff?”

“Nialler, leave it.” Liam tries to interject.

“You know what, Niall, you’re really not funny.”

Niall just shrugs, smiling coolly. “Yeah, and you’re really not intimidating either.”

Louis ends up smirking too. “Not tryin’ to be, idiot.”

Once Louis and Niall appease their differences Liam relaxes too, and after a while the three of them leave the park and start walking very laboriously back towards town, no real plan in place about where they’re headed.

It takes them a good half an hour to do the ten minute journey, what with all the stopping and messing around and Niall insisting that she could give Liam a piggyback. As always, Louis’ house is a no-go because of all the siblings, and both of Liam’s sisters are around this week too so they end up going back to Niall’s house.

It’s about five o’clock by the time they arrive and the sausage roll from earlier is but a distant memory to Louis’ belly now.

“Never fear!” Niall proclaims loudly. “I will cook for us!”

Liam groans loudly. “I don’t wanna be struck down with food poisoning four days before my birthday party!” 

Niall gasps at her indignantly. “Oi, cheeky bitch, I can cook!” She pouts. “And it’s  _ our _ party, not yours.”

Louis grins at the exchange, but she is filled with trepidation at the thought of what Niall might end up serving to them. Louis sits on one of the countertops and Liam takes a timid seat around the small dinner table. 

Niall seems to know what she’s doing, though; going to the fridge for eggs and cheese. Louis feels quietly nervous at the prospect of omelette cooked by an amateur, but she needn’t have. Niall rustles them up bacon, cheese and mushroom omelettes; two in separate frying pans on the hob and one inside an omelette maker. She even chucks some lettuce on the plates and calls it a garnish. 

“There you go, haters,” She says as she sets down their plates and throws up her middle finger. “Don’t choke.”

Louis smirks as she looks down at her plate, and she and Liam eat not only their omelettes but their words as well, when they taste the offering that Niall has come up with. Jay is equally as surprised a few hours later when she asks her daughters what they want for tea and Louis says she’s still full from Niall’s omelette.

“Niall?” Jay asks. “Made an omelette? From scratch?” Louis nods. “And you didn’t die?”

“Nope, still alive and kicking, Johannah.” Louis says with a smirk as she takes a can of Coke and a bag of crisps up to her room, only marginally regretting her choices an hour later when the smell of cottage pie comes wafting up the stairs.

  
  


Louis’ just about to fall asleep later on that evening when she jumps out of her skin at the sound of her phone dinging.  _ ‘Hi Loulou!’ _ Her message had read,  _ ‘Did you miss me? Coming to Scarborough tomorrow?’ _

It’s a slightly random request, but an easy decision to make regardless.

  
  


Harry’s mum and nan are also along for the ride, it transpires the next morning. Harry’s nan was a frail old lady back when they were kids, and she’s no different now, but she’s cute and perhaps one of the only people in the universe that is oblivious to everyone’s obsession with the two of them. Harry has snacks for the car journey, even though it’s only quarter to ten in the morning.

It’s nearing lunchtime by the time they arrive in Scarborough, but thankfully the sun is shining and they each have twenty quid in their purses. After a fifteen minute search for a parking space they finally disembark and go their own way as Anne and Harry’s nan wander slowly onto the sand. 

Still full and slightly nauseous from their sweet haul on the way here, they forego the fish and chip shop for now and start wandering up the promenade. It’s still the summer holidays, obviously, so the place is teeming with kids. They pass the bungee trampolines, Louis wincing and Harry beaming as kids spring through the air screeching with delight.

They pass deckchairs to rent on the left and a gaudy double-fronted arcade hall to the right. They weave in and out of the crowds of people bunched here and there, past benches full of families slurping on ice creams and shirtless lads with dodgy tan lines. 

They keep walking, gradually emerging from the hubbub into a much quieter, calmer stretch of beach. They look at each other, unlink their arms from where they’d been joined and frantically pull off their sandals before running onto the sand, giggling and screaming.

“Well it’s not the south of France but it ain’t bad!” Louis shouts over the howl of the wind, wiggling her toes in the sand as she admires Harry freely spinning around on the sand with her arms wide.

All in the space of what feels like half a millisecond, Harry grabs hold of her wrist, yanks her in close and the two of them go tumbling to the ground, loose sand getting everywhere as they fall.

“Harry!” Louis shrieks, hiding her face from the airborne debris. “Oh my God, what’re you playing at?!”

“It’s fun!” Harry counters, rolling onto her elbows and peering down at Louis. Louis can see the flecks of sand in her hair, a smudge of it on her cheek too. “It’s only a bit of sand, Lou, not gonna hurt you!”

Louis takes this comment and catalogues it, deciding that the only reasonable next step would be to grab a handful of the dry, crumbly sand and toss it at Harry. The clump expands in the air as the wind catches it and Harry ducks her head, screaming into the ground and covering her face with her hands as the sand covers her.

“You little-” She yells, popping up a second later with a maniacal grin and her own handfuls of sand. She pelts them at Louis, who makes the rookie mistake of opening her mouth to yell her objections, and ends up with a gobful.

Louis rolls away across the dry sand but Harry is hot on her tail. “Don’t!” Louis demands, a small smile tickling at the corner of her mouth as she holds out her hand to keep Harry at arm’s length. “Do not come any closer!”

Louis’ hand presses against Harry’s sternum and she leans slightly against it, panting heavily. A most unexpected vision flashes through Louis’ conscious and as if Harry feels it too she shrinks back. Louis lets her hand drop away and she lays there in the sand, staring up at the clouds while Harry sits on her knees getting her breath back. 

Louis’ heart is hammering hard in her chest. Probably down to all the exertion, yeah.

A lady and her dog go past, the mutt getting a little bit too close for Louis’ liking. She sits up quickly and Harry glares daggers at her for her dislike of animals, but then they poke their tongues out at each other and the slight awkwardness of the last minute or so is gone. 

They scramble to their feet and arm-in-arm they continue on their way. They seem to be the only ones headed this way, everyone else that they pass – runners, more dog walkers, a woman with a toddler – is going the other way, back towards civilisation, but they plod on regardless. 

The beach starts to narrow, the shoreline getting closer and closer to their sandy toes the further they go. Soon, they happen upon a brick wall, effectively bringing their beach walk to an end. There are crumbly limestone steps to take them back up to ground level but there’s no handrail and it looks quite precarious. Louis puts her sandy shoes back on and surveys the staircase as she waits for Harry, who is hopping around on one foot trying to get her sandal on.

When Harry finally gets her shoes on, she marches on, taking the first four steps two at a time.

“Slow down, there’s no need to rush!” Louis hisses.

“Sorry, didn’t realise me nan was still with us!” Harry mocks, laughing as she leans her body unnecessarily far over to look over the edge of the steps. It’s only about a two foot drop onto the sand below but that doesn’t stop Louis from worrying; she’s not sure why it’s bothering her so. 

“Harry stop it! Don’t go so near the edge!” 

“Oh shush!” Harry exclaims, spinning back around freely, the loose gravel chips crunching beneath her feet making her wobble. “Come on, hurry up!”

With a ragged sigh Louis starts up again, carefully making her way up the chalky, collapsing steps, one eye on Harry at all times. Thankfully, they make it to the top unscathed and Harry is smugly victorious.

“Where do we go now?” Louis asks, surveying their surroundings. Right is where they’ve just come from and left is a rather dank looking row of car parking spaces outside an obscurely ornate building that’s home to a couple of contrastingly tacky souvenir shops.

“Let’s keep going,” Harry says decidedly, and so they do. They bypass the shops selling crap and come across an archway that apparently leads to a brick wall. They both snort bemusedly and continue on past a large white building with floor to ceiling windows, a funky patterned floor and not a lot else.

“Scarborough is weird,” Louis decides as they pass by the beautifully empty shell of a building. 

They come to a stop again a moment later. They’re faced with the choice between a stair case that goes God knows where, or a small tunnel that runs underneath a building with big red and white no entry signs. Louis looks at Harry’s blank expression and makes the executive decision to choose the tunnel.

“It says no entry, Lou.” Harry points out, hanging back. 

Louis rolls her eyes. “I assume that’s meant for  _ cars _ , Haz, not humans.”

Harry scowls but follows Louis, through the narrow sheltered walkway and emerging on the other side to yet more mismatched architecture.

“Where now?” Harry asks, and Louis shrugs, leaving the decision making up to her for once. “Okay, up here?”

Louis looks in the direction Harry is looking, to be greeted with yet more stairs. 

“More stairs?” Louis groans with a face on. Harry grabs her by the wrist and leads her towards the steps. They seem to go on forever, cutting right through the middle of thick foliage and dying grass in desperate need of a mow. 

When they get to the top level – Louis is only very slightly out of breath – they’re greeted by a concrete paradise of B&B’s and naff looking tex mex restaurants. It’s breezier up here than down on the beach and Louis is suddenly very grateful for her oversized denim jacket she’d been regretting earlier.

With an uninterrupted view of the sea in front of them, they find a bench and huddle close together. Harry was right when she’d said it wasn’t the south of France, but it’s still nice. For a few hours they’ve been able to forget about Harry’s mum and nan just a few yards up the beach and feel like independent young women. 

Once they’ve recovered from the climb they start to wander aimlessly. Eventually they happen upon a nice grassy area with some well adorned flower planters. Nodding to each other in silent agreement, they find a spot and settle down. Somehow this little suntrap is almost completely shielded from the wind, existing in a quiet, still pocket of air.

“This is nice,” Harry says. “No sand for you to pelt at me.”

“Hey, you started that!” Louis protests. Harry just looks away because she knows Louis is right but won’t admit it. 

Louis smiles and shakes her head then looks down at the grass beneath her crossed legs. She tears up a handful of grass and grins up at Harry, who spots her immediately and begins to shuffle away.

“Oh no you don’t! Stay away!” 

Giggling, Louis uncrosses her legs, lifts onto her knees and crawls across the grass after Harry, letting the handful of grass go. The slivers of green go sprinkling down onto Harry, landing in her hair and all over her shoulders, back and arms.

“Oh my God!” Harry yells, blindly grabbing at Louis and catching the edge of her denim jacket between her fingers. She pulls Louis down to her, the two of them wrestling with each other as clumps of grass fly.

It’s a wordless scuffle, no intent behind it and half-way through Louis forgets what the hell they’re doing it for. She forces Harry off of her and they sink into the grass breathlessly. 

“Hang on,” Louis murmurs, sitting up again and slipping her denim jacket off her shoulders. She settles back down, turning her head to look up at Harry, who has rolled onto her side and is using her bicep as a pillow, her hand curved around unnaturally to fiddle with her messy hair.

Harry meets Louis’ eye and gives her a small smile. It feels loaded in a way that their admittedly touch-feely relationship never had before. The air between them feels thick and Louis has to look away. Her eyes land on the gently bowing fronds of a nearby tree. She almost jumps out of her skin when Harry reaches down between their bodies and slips her hand into Louis’. 

Harry doesn’t mention Louis’ judder. Still staring awkwardly at the branches just past Harry’s head, Louis feels her breathing slow down while her heart speeds up and it makes her feel quite dizzy. Harry squeezes her hand tightly and Louis has no choice but to look back at her. 

“Don’t really want to go back to year thirteen,” Harry confesses quietly. Louis feels her busy heart jumping into her throat. “It scares me, the thought of growing up; having to make decisions that will affect my life in such a massive way.”

Louis is surprised by what Harry has said, and doesn’t know what to say. She hadn’t realised Harry felt like that. Louis’ own head-in-sand policy about life after sixth form is self-administered but Harry’s quietness on the topic is apparently because she’s terrified of it.

“We’re not mature enough to be making decisions that will affect the rest of our lives! Well, maybe Liam is, but not us. Not me.”

Louis studies Harry’s face. She looks nervous, hesitant, a little bit sad. It’s what it takes for Louis to wake up and realise that this is her best friend asking for help; someone to listen. That’s what she’s here for; to make sure Harry is always happy. She has to push aside whatever it is she’s been stumbling over and be there for Harry the same way Harry has been there for her.

“It’ll be all right, Haz,” Louis promises. She runs the pad of her thumb over Harry’s knuckle. ”When you find the right path you’ll know it’s right for you. And we’ve got a few months before we need to make any decisions.”

Harry hums noncommittally and the two of them continue to lie there, side by side in the grass, still holding hands. They talk some more; Harry nods along with Louis’ positive affirmations though Louis isn’t convinced she’s taking any of it in. Harry reassures her that she feels better eventually and all Louis can do is believe her.

They find their second wind shortly after. They get to their feet and Harry drapes Louis’ jacket back over her shoulders for her. Clutching at the lapels, Louis follows Harry over to the edge. They lean against the wall side by side, admiring the view. They’ve ventured out of their little suntrap and the wind blows Harry’s hair every which way as they try and take pictures together with their phones turned back-to-front.

The photos get sillier and sillier as they go on until a lot of them are just blurry messes, featuring Louis in a lot of very unflattering mid-laugh poses. Harry says it’s naturally beautiful but Louis doesn’t agree.

Louis is just about to put her phone away when Harry leans in and plants a kiss right on her cheek. She holds it there, obviously waiting for Louis to take the picture, and Louis feels obligated, in her blind panic, to comply.

“Let me see!” Harry squeals once Louis presses the button and they hear the shutter sound over the howling seafront wind. She leans in close, clutching the edge of Louis’ screen as she scrolls backwards through the photos they’ve taken. It’s hard to see them in too much detail due to the glare from the sun but Louis can see her awkwardness shining through clear as day in the final photo they took. 

“Aw, they’re nice! You’ll have to Bluetooth them all to me!” Harry enthuses, taking it upon herself to prod the arrow button when Louis takes too long. “Ah, that one’s nice! I want that one for my Facebook photo!”

Louis just nods along as Harry all but commandeers her phone, oohing and ahhing at their photo shoot. She’s either ignoring Louis’ sudden awkwardness or she’s oblivious to it and it’s all in Louis’ head. Either way, Louis sort of wishes she was anywhere but here.

“Shall we head back?” Harry asks, as if by magic. “I wanna go into one of those arcades we passed on the way!”

Harry looks so excited, wiggling her eyebrows with a wide smile, and Louis has no choice but to agree, of course; she’s powerless to this girl. She nods in agreement and the two of them begin the journey back down to sea level and then back the way they came, towards the row of arcades and fish and chip shops on the seafront.

  
  


The beach is still absolutely buzzing with people and the arcades are no different. After standing in a queue for ten minutes to get a fiver changed into two pence coins, they take their plastic cups of pennies over to a loud, flashing machine with two levels of coins moving backwards and forwards waiting for someone with the skills (or just good luck) to send them tipping over the edge and win big. The ‘prizes’ that sit upon the coins are barely worth having; plastic keyrings, fluffy little troll dolls and other such crap. 

“Okay, here’s how you do it!” Harry declares, taking five or six coins out of her cup and slotting the first one into the machine. She’s about sixteen or eighteen pence down by the time she looks across at Louis and sheepishly admits defeat. “It shouldn’t be this hard! It’s chucking coins at other coins, how hard can it be?”

“Very hard, apparently!” Louis snorts, nudging Harry out of the way with her hip and taking her place. “Let me try.”

Louis tries to look like she has a tactic, a game plan, but really she is completely winging it. She waits until the first layer of coins is making its way out, hoping that if she releases the coin now it will bounce its way down the slot and fall into place perfectly against the other coins. She holds her breath as it makes its way down, plonking against metal bars that send it skewing off in all directions. Eventually it lands with a plink, pushing the three coins nearest to it forward, prompting the pennies that were hanging off the edge to fall.

Louis cheers and Harry groans as the jackpot clangs into the metal dispenser noisily.

“See?” Louis cheers, putting her arm around Harry’s shoulder and jostling her. “That is how it’s done, Styles!”

Harry pouts and as a consolation prize Louis gives her three of her coins. “Try again.” 

Louis steps aside and Harry steps up to the plate. She holds her breath as she places the coin against the slot, not letting go yet. 

Louis watches it like a hawk, murmuring under her breath, “Wait, not yet. Okay… now!”

Harry lets go and Louis holds her breath too as the coin goes bouncing down towards the bottom. Louis can see Harry out of the corner of her eye; her mouth is twisted together like she’s sucking on a wedge of lemon and she has one eye closed.

She needn’t have worried though. The coin goes springing down the chute and when it lands it pushes another coin the exact width of the platform, sends four coins over the edge with then prompts another mound to fall. The coins go hammering into the dispenser, the machine bleating and flashing to indicate success.

Harry goes a rather fetching shade of crimson which does not dissipate even once the coins have finished being noisy. They don’t even have room in their cups for the coins, so they go straight back into the machine. This time, luck is not on their side and their winnings are paltry compared to the amount they put in. 

Next they try out the grabber machines – another fruitless effort – and painstakingly insert 50p’s worth of two pence pieces into an arcade game that involves them shooting at pixelated enemies on the screen. It was probably quite a snazzy bit of kit back in the seventies.

“Harry, isn’t that your phone ringing?” Louis asks as she fires at the on screen bad guy, getting him right in the chest. It may sound like a corny distraction technique, but Harry’s phone actually is trilling in her jeans pocket.

“Oh for fu-” Harry throws her plastic gun into the holder and abandons her round, her character getting quickly pummelled by bullets. “Hello?” She shouts into her phone, laughing and swatting Louis as she fires off a round across the screen, prematurely ending her game. “No, we’re just up the road at the arcades… Yeah, all right! Okay, love you too, bye!”

“Aww!” Louis teases, getting another smack for her troubles. 

“C’mon, mum and nan want to get fish and chips before we go.” Harry says, dragging Louis away from the machines. 

“Uh, Haz?” Louis stops and holds up her cup of pennies. They’ve still got at least half a cup each; they definitely overestimated how much gambling they’d be doing. They look around for a solution, and Harry spots one first. She points to a charity box chained up by the entrance. 

“Perfect!” She declares, and they head over to it, dumping all of their coppers into the charity box. Louis feels pleased with her good deed for the day and hopes that the poorly kids will appreciate her pennies. 

Harry takes her hand as they emerge out onto the street, and together they cross over and step onto the sand, scouring the beach for Harry’s mum and nan. Harry’s hand is warm and clammy in hers, and Louis is terrified of what it means, if it means anything at all.

  
  


Exhaustion suddenly catches up to Louis when they get back to the car. Her belly is full of greasy food and her skin feels tight from the sun and the salty air. 

In their post-food haze the mood in the car is subdued; Anne quietly listens to Coldplay as she drives, Harry’s nan is in the passenger seat asleep and Harry and Louis are at bookends in the back of the car, both gazing out of their respective windows.

Louis’ eyes feel tired as she listens to Chris Martin telling her he’s going to try and fix her. She rolls those tired eyes, pitying poor Chris for thinking that he could do anything to help.

While they were eating, Louis had been hyper aware of Harry’s so close to her in the cramped booth. Now, in the eerie quietness of the car, Louis’ mind is all over the place. It’s Harry’s confession, replaying on a loop, it’s how she’d felt when Harry held her hand, it’s the ghost of Harry’s lips high on her cheekbone and how that made her feel. Feelings seemingly coming out of nowhere.

Harry sniffs and Louis turns immediately, her heart jumping into her throat with panic, but thankfully her best friend’s cheeks are dry. They share small smiles and Harry goes back to looking out the window at the A614 rushing by. Louis’ eyes revert to looking down at her lap. Things aren’t okay and she knows it.

Anne drops Louis off at home, perhaps somehow telepathically sensing that Louis is ready to be alone for a while. She thanks Anne, says a loud and clear goodbye to Harry’s nan in the passenger seat and leans over the empty space between them to hug Harry goodbye.

She waves half-heartedly as the car retreats down the road, and then slips around the back and lets herself in via the kitchen. 

“Hiya love!” Jay greets her immediately. Always in the kitchen that woman. “How was Sunny Scarborough?”

Louis rolls her eyes with second hand embarrassment and nods. “Yeah, was all right.”

Jay snorts. “Just all right? God Lou, don’t burst a blood vessel with your enthusiasm will you?” 

Louis rolls her eyes again. “Fine, yeah it was good.”

“Have you eaten?”

Louis nods. “We had chips.”

“And battered sausage?” Jay asks with a grin, and Louis nods sheepishly. “That’s my girl!”

  
  


Louis goes to bed early on Wednesday and is bed bound for much of Thursday too, only surfacing at about half past five dressed in her pyjama bottoms and a baggy jumper.

“Oh!” Jay exclaims with a smug grin when Louis stumbles into the living room. “It lives! I was worried you’d need to be surgically removed from your bed!”

“Oh very funny,” Louis mutters, flinging herself onto the sofa next to Fizzy.

“Oi, get off!” Fizzy whines as Louis shoves her feet into Fizzy’s lap. “Mum, tell her!”

“Fiz, enough, love.” Jay plays peacekeeper weakly. Fizzy huffs and proceeds to pinch Louis’ ankles. Louis digs her heels into Fizzy’s thigh and she cries out. “Girls, grow up!”

Louis swings her legs over and curls up into the corner of the sofa, making an exaggerated effort not to touch her little sister. “There you go, happy now?” She scowls at Fizzy. 

“Once I have a bath to get your stink off me, yeah.” Fizzy retaliates, and Louis sticks her middle finger up at the eleven year old. Fizzy’s mouth drops open and she immediately screams, “Mum! Louis is swearing at me!”

“No I’m not, God!” Louis protests, reaching for the cushion between them and lobbing it at Fizzy. “Shut up, grass!”

  
  


On Friday the four little ones go to the child-minder while mum is at work so Louis wakes up to golden silence at about ten. She lies in bed for half an hour or so watching T4 before staggering out of bed during the advert break leaving the telly playing.

In the kitchen Louis finds a to-do list left by her mum, and she picks it up disinterestedly as she takes her cereal bowl through to the living room. Turning on a second television and skipping through the Sky guide to get to the music channels, she eats her cereal and then glances over the list.

The six item list keeps Louis busy for most of the day, mainly because she takes so damn long completing each task. Even simple things like take out the rubbish bag and unloading the dishwasher become arduous as Louis contemplates and procrastinates. It’s hard to get on when your mind is as active as Louis’ is.

She is thankful at quarter past three when a message from Liam comes through on BBM.  _ ‘Can u meet me at the end of ur road? x’ _ Liam wants to know, and Louis is more than happy to put aside her chores for her friend. So, she changes out of her pyjama top that’s splashed with cereal milk and heads out the door, pocketing her key carefully as she goes.

Liam is sitting cross legged in jeans and a flowery top on the kerb side waiting for her, as promised.

“Payno,” Louis greets her, stepping off the kerb and holding her hands out to haul Liam up. “All right?”

Liam nods with a meek smile. “Wanna go to the shops?”

“Sure,” Louis agrees, and they chat aimlessly about nothing in particular as they walk. They spend about ten minutes in the corner shop trying to choose between Walkers and McCoy’s, and in the end come away with both.

They don’t set a destination, they just walk and talk and periodically lift a crisp to their mouths. They talk about the youth centre that’s just opened in town, the new BBM update, the virtues of the colour purple as a nail polish and something or other to do with one of Liam’s older sisters. It’s obvious that Liam didn’t call her up for chit-chat though.

They stumble upon a kiddie park deep inside one of the new housing estates and they let themselves in the bright red gates and take up residence on the swings. 

Liam sighs as she shuffles her feet back and then lifts them, sending herself flying through the air on the swing. She doesn’t go far, though.

“What’s up, Payno?” Louis asks, reaching out to stop the thing after one too many sad swings from Liam. “You’ve got a face like a slapped arse.”

Liam sighs again, a full body sigh that fills her entire chest cavity. “Tomorrow,” Liam confesses quietly, fiddling with a loose thread on her top.

“The party?” Louis asks, and Liam nods. “What about it?”

“I’m… I’m scared, Lou. I don’t- what if no one comes but Niall’s mates? You four, fine, you lot have to be there, but everyone else, they don’t and- and I just… Ed and that lot, they’re really only Niall’s mates not mine.”

“Payno, don’t. People will be there!” Louis says, but Liam still looks sceptical. Close to tears actually. “Everyone who was invited will be there. Even Ed.” Louis amends, trying to sound more confident for Liam’s sake. “That lot from your torture class are coming too aren’t they?”

Liam rolls her eyes with a small smile. Liam  _ voluntarily _ signing on for two more years of torture, aka PE, is something Louis can’t get her head around. She shudders as she momentarily remembers Harry’s brief foray into jogging. 

“Yeah, but, they said they’re coming but they might’ve forgotten? Like, that was a couple of weeks ago that Niall sent the invites on Facebook and I haven’t heard from anyone so they might’ve forgot or-”

“Do you want to message them? Just send a gentle reminder?”

“No!” Liam exclaims, looking aghast. “I can’t do that, how desperate would that look!”

“Okay, fine,” Louis is careful not to agree or disagree. “But for what it’s worth, I don’t think you need to worry. We’re all there for both of you, and same with Ed and everyone; they’re all game for a party.”

“God, I’m terrified,” Liam moans sadly, looking down at the ground swaying aimlessly from side to side. “Why did I agree to this? What was I thinking? Why does Niall have to push us until we snap all the time?”

That, is a good question. 

“If she’s not forcing a scandal on you and Hazza she’s forcing me into a party that I don’t even want! She can’t just… urgh, now I feel bad. I don’t mean to bitch, but…”

“But it’s justified here,” Louis supplies when Liam falters. “I think it’s too late to back out now, but I also think that it’s gonna be all right, Li-Li. I’ll be there, and Haz and Zayn. Niall too… unfortunately.” She says with mirth, and they both share a small smile. “People will show up, that’s just how house parties work; even people who weren’t invited probably! It’ll be fun. It’s your birthday and you deserve to have a party as much as the next guy.”

Liam takes a fair bit of persuading, and even then Louis wouldn’t say she’s managed to one hundred percent reassure her friend, but Liam’s soon smiling again so Louis counts it as a win. 

It’s getting on for six by the time Louis has walked Liam back and got home herself, and her mum is blind with rage when she strolls into the kitchen. 

“And where the hell have you been?” Jay explodes. “The dishwasher hasn’t been emptied, the milk is still out on the side, there is wet washing that could’ve gone out on the line! And on top of all that, you don’t answer your poxy phone! Where have you been, Louis, is it too much to ask to just help out with a few jobs around the house? Do I not do enough for you five as it is?”

“If you’d let me get a word in edgeways!” Louis exclaims defensively. “I went out to see Liam because she was upset, okay? Sorry about your bloody washing, I’ll do it now!”

“No don’t worry about it, I’ve done it,” Jay replies tersely, pausing for a beat or two before quietly asking, “What’s wrong with Liam?”

Louis just shakes her head, going for the abridged version as she walks away. “Same old same old, y’know?”

“No, I don’t know, hence why I asked!” Louis hears her mum mutter as she stomps off upstairs, somehow managing to bite her tongue and not snap the last word. 

Lottie is standing in the doorway to her and Fizzy’s bedroom, smirking at her goadingly. “Shut up.” Louis mutters as she barges past her, into her own room and slamming the door.

  
  


Louis still has a face on when she goes back downstairs for tea but the twins are moaning about something and Fizzy is going on about something else so the focus isn’t on Louis and she soon gives up pretending to still be bothered.

She eats her turkey dinosaurs and chips quietly, dunking the fries in so much ketchup they no longer taste like potato. The girls have ice cream for pudding with sprinkles and strawberry sauce but Louis isn’t interested in that. She takes a fun-size Mars Bar from the treats cupboard and goes back to her room. 

After a bit of scrolling through Twitter – she still doesn’t really get the point of Twitter – she reverts back to BBM. Emily has a new screen name now so Louis is confused for a second when a message immediately pops up,  _ ‘long time no spk gorgeous x’. _

Louis shifts in bed, rearranging herself and wiggling down beneath the covers and rescuing her runaway Mars Bar before replying to Emily. 

Now Louis is generally unshockable, it takes a lot to get her blushing, but Emily really is something else. Louis is not that naïve to think that Emily is her real name, nor that the pictures she’s sending are real either, but the attention is nice. In her head she can pretend; no one has to know that she’s really seventeen year old virgin Lou living in a four bed semi in Yorkshire with her mum and sisters and not nineteen year old super babe Lulu with her own flat in Leeds. 

She has a conversation with Liam running alongside Emily’s, and flitting between explicit filth and menial chatter is certainly keeping Louis on her toes. At the same time as responding to Emily’s rather graphic depictions of what they’d be doing if they were together right now, she’s trying to placate Liam who is having Party Meltdown round two. 

**☺** **Li:** _Do u think I could just miss it? No1 would care would they?_

 **< 3 Lulu:** _No Li u can’t do that at all._

 **☺** **Li:** _Why not? Im really fucking scared lou I don’t wanna do it_

 **< 3 Lulu:** _Li you’ll be fine. Were all gonna be there u won’t be on your own I promise xx_

Liam doesn’t respond for a while and so Louis goes back to Emily’s conversation. The things that Emily is saying to her and the things that she is saying back make Louis’ heart hammer in her chest.  _ ‘Gotta go babe x’ _ she sends with a winking emoticon and then closes BBM quickly.

She’s never felt this uneasy before and she doesn’t know why she’s feeling it now. She inadvertently flutters down below and then quickly rolls onto her front to try and quell the feeling. She clamps her thighs as tightly shut as she can and goes back to Liam’s benign chat.

Louis stays in bed through eight o’ clock and nine o’ clock too, only shuffling downstairs at half past when the rabble have gone to bed. 

“Hi,” Jay says softly, not looking up from her book. Louis nods silently on her way through to the kitchen. 

She shoves three biscuits into her pocket and takes a bag of prawn cocktail crisps from the cupboard.  Stopping by the fridge to glug some milk directly from the carton, she shuffles back through the living room.

“Where are you going?” Jay asks.

Louis stops abruptly. “Back t’my room.” She says. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” Jay says, coming to the end of her paragraph and looking up. She takes her glasses off her nose and blinks Louis back into focus. Strange woman. “You don’t have to hide away all the time, Lou. You can sit downstairs if you like.”

“I know,” Louis agrees hastily. “I just… I’m a bit tired, s’all.”

“Ah yes, that’ll be all the house work you did today!” Jay smiles, and Louis just shakes her head at her. “Go on then, love. I won’t keep you any longer.”

  
  


When Louis wakes on Saturday morning she half expects to have a message from Liam saying she’s run off to Austria but strangely there’s nothing. Feeling slightly anxious despite her sleepy state, Louis opens Liam’s BBM thread and sends a quick message. 

She’s nervous to prompt Liam; worried about what response she might get, but the worry that Liam is sat at home absolutely tearing herself up inside about the party tonight is much worse.

Liam professes that she’s fine, and Louis has no choice but to believe her. For the rest of the morning Louis has little inclination to do anything; thinking about her own problems and the game face she’s going to have to plaster on tonight is already making her feel tired. 

“Lou?” Her mum raps on the door thrice before bursting in.

“Why knock if you’re just gonna burst in before I even respond?” Louis mutters as Jay dumps a basket of clean folded washing on Louis’ desk chair.

“Because I can,” Jay remarks. “Can you put that away before you start getting ready please? What time are you going out and what time will be you be back? Do you need dad to give you a lift because if you call him now you might just catch him.”

Louis’ eyes blow wide at the barrage of information. “God mum, calm down. No, I don’t need a lift, Niall’s-” Niall is paying her brother to do it, she was going to say, but she stops herself. “Niall’s brother has offered.”

Jay throws her a sceptical look. “And how old is he? Is he a safe driver?”

“How should I know?”

“Louis!” Jay exclaims. “This is not filling me with confidence you know!”

Louis rolls her eyes. “It’s fine! He’s nineteen or twenty I think! He’s never crashed before, so I’m sure he’s a great driver. He drops Niall off at school sometimes and he drives carefully then.”

Jay looks thoroughly unamused and unconvinced, and flounces out of the room with a huff. Louis stares at the back of her bedroom door, at her dressing gown hanging in front of a faded, slightly torn poster of the Spice Girls that she just kept up for old times’ sake, lost in her own thoughts. She’s surprised actually that Lottie or Fizzy don’t appear at the door to goad her like they normally do when Louis is being shouted at by their mum. 

Louis is in even less of a mood to go out by the time she’s sulkily put the clean washing away and thrown the empty basket out onto the landing, showered and straightened her hair. 

She can’t be bothered to do anything more than that; as far as Louis is concerned, just having clean hair is ‘putting in effort’. She sits at her desk spinning aimlessly around with her makeup bag in hand, daydreaming for at least fifteen minutes before finally jumping (or stumbling) into action.

  
  


Niall is about fifteen minutes behind schedule when she turns up in Greg’s car. Louis has been ready, reluctantly, for about the last forty five minutes, and every single second of those forty five minutes have been hell. 

Her lashes are painted with Maybelline mascara and she has dark kohl rings around her blue orbs, she’s wearing all black; a peplum top and skinnies and her River Island boots give her a few inches of height that she so desperately needs.

“Oioi!” Niall screams out of the car window before clambering out and pulling the seat forward for Louis to crawl into the back. Louis pulls the front door shut carefully and approaches Niall cautiously. “Aren’t you gonna wish me a happy birthday?” 

“No?” Louis says, making a face. Niall quirks an indignant brow. “Because it’s not your birthday yet?”

“Well it’s my birthday  _ party _ , same difference.” Niall objects. Louis just ignores her and clambers into Greg’s Corsa, smiling briefly at the older bloke that she doesn’t really know that well, if at all. Greg grunts at her in greeting. She finds a space in between an empty Lucozade bottle and a pile of old football t-shirts as Niall clunks her seat back into place and throws herself into the car. Louis is still reaching for her seatbelt as Greg pulls away from the kerb. 

Louis hopes her mum isn’t watching from behind the net curtain in the living room because she knows she’d have a heart attack if she witnessed Greg’s driving. 

The first stop Liam’s to fetch the other birthday girls. Liam looks pale and quite sickly when she joins Louis in the back of the car, a state made no better by Greg’s erratic driving. Zayn and Harry are getting a lift from Zayn’s older sister Doniya, Niall informs them wisely from the front, and Louis nods at that. The feeling of realising that she didn’t know that ahead of time sits uncomfortably in her tight chest and she feels a bit sick. She wishes Greg would slow down a bit. She wishes she could crack a window but for some reason the window winder has been snapped off. She wishes the lines hadn’t got so blurry.

Eventually the scenery whizzing past the window starts to become more familiar again and soon Greg is screeching to a halt on the road outside the house. Louis notices a bottle of vodka rolling around in the footwell of the passenger side and decides  _ not _ to think about it too much else it will drive her mad.

Ed, Nick and two other lads are loitering awkwardly on the pavement, just off to the side of the driveway. Louis bristles as soon as she spots them, and Ed is making a pointed effort of not looking at them too, though Louis isn’t sure if that’s due to her or because of the close proximity of Niall’s intimidating older brother.

Greg doesn’t stick around for long once he drops them off, and as he screeches off down the street, Ed and his band of idiots shuffle slowly closer. Louis pins herself to Liam’s side, gripping her forearm tightly.

“Your hands are cold,” Liam hisses as Louis digs her fingers into Liam’s arm. She doesn’t apologise. 

Niall is marching on ahead to get the door open, beckoning Ed and the Idiots over too. Louis grips Liam’s arm even tighter and pulls her along so they can get in ahead of Ed et cetera. She’s just about in when she hears a dull, monotone voice behind her.

“Louis?” Ed says again, slightly more vigorously this time when she doesn’t respond. “Louis, stop.”

Louis screws her mouth up into a scowl and lets her gaze go slack and cold as she drops Liam’s arm and turns around. “What?” She asks bluntly, aware of Liam screeching to a panicked halt by her side.

“Sorry, yeah?” Ed says; a pathetic attempt. “That shit the other week, I was out of line. So sorry.”

Louis stares up at Ed, mustering up all of the icy cool venom in her veins that she can and projecting it onto him. She holds her gaze for a few moments before shrugging her shoulders flippantly, and it all disappears. “S’fine, whatever.” She says, turning her back on him and linking her arm back through Liam’s. “C’mon, Payno, let’s go inside and find our friends.”

They head inside and straight for the living room. The downstairs of Niall’s house is a big open-plan L shape with the kitchen tucked away in the furthest corner and big French doors on the side leading out to the garden. They’re flung open and Niall is already flitting to and fro with various alcoholic beverages in hand.

They make their way through to the garden. There’s a fold out table on the lawn stacked high with booze and plastic cups, and Louis knows better than to be surprised with Niall’s haul. There is also food; bags upon bags of share size crisps from the Co-Op; onion rings, bacon rashers, cheese balls, salt ‘n’ vinegar sticks and… well, not a lot else.

“Enough crisps?” Liam asks with a cute little giggle. Niall grins happily as she tears open a bag of onion rings, and Louis smiles at Liam’s obvious efforts to fit in. 

Niall decants the crisps into one of her mum’s mixing bowls and then disappears inside again, reappearing a minute or two later with two birthday girl sashes in her hand. She drapes one over her shoulders and puts the other one around Liam. 

The party officially begins when Niall declares the ‘bar’ open, inviting everyone to help themselves while she connects her phone up to her Bluetooth speakers.

People arrive quite rapidly after that, filling the garden and downstairs. Louis is just about to nudge Liam and tell her she needn’t have been worried but then she realises the faces around them are getting less and less familiar. She can see Liam retreating into herself again as people pass them by; girls from Niall’s geography group, people from her communications class and people that Louis knows are only here because of Niall’s big mouth.

Thankfully, after several very precarious moments where it seems as if no one else is going to show, there is a small uproar and then the two girls from Liam’s PE class turn up, with two other girls in tow that Louis’ seen around school. 

“See!” Louis nudges Liam with relief as Perrie and Jade – Louis thinks that’s what their names are – break away from their two friends and giggle their way through the small throng of people towards Liam.

“Hi babe!” The blonde one – Perrie? - coos all over Liam, pulling her in for a hug. Louis steps aside and lets Liam have her moment, feeling an irrational mix of proud and jealous. 

_ Pull yourself together, _ Louis hisses to herself as she lets her eyes wander over the crowds. The garden is nice; not a single slide or punctured football or kiddie scooter in sight. Rolling her eyes again and questioning just how old she thinks she is, Louis wanders over to the booze table and helps herself to another fruity cider.

After battling with the bottle opener for what feels like hours, she finally gets the cap off. After doing that, Louis has run out of things to occupy her time with, but thankfully she hears the familiarly dulcet tones of Zayn nearby. Louis looks up and sees Zayn and Harry cutting through the crowds. Alongside them but most likely not  _ with _ them is a boy who goes straight to Ed and doesn’t lift his head in greeting to anyone, least of all Niall. 

Louis instantly feels lighter now that they’re here. Zayn briefly smiles en route to the booze table but Harry comes to Louis first, smiling. That sets Louis’ mind  _ slightly _ at ease. Harry’s in a ruffle skirt, a wide belt and a lacy top, her hair is fixed into smooth and glossy curls and she’s got eyeliner flicks on both eyes. They’re perfectly even, somehow. Witchcraft.

“Hey chick,” Harry greets her. “All right?”

“Yeah,” Louis nods. “What took you so long?”

Harry rolls her eyes and sighs, looking over to Zayn before murmuring, “Zayn and her sister had a massive argument before we went out, Doniya was threatening to not take us so her mum got involved and- oh it was just a whole thing. Shh, she’s coming.”

“All right?” Zayn asks, taking a swig of her drink. Louis nods, noticing that Zayn didn’t bring a drink over for Harry too. She smirks at Zayn and then at Harry, nodding towards the booze table. Harry nods too with her own smile and the two of them make their excuses.

“Later, lovebirds!” Zayn calls, casually wandering off to seek out her own entertainment. Louis sort of envies Zayn for that. Pointedly ignoring her comment, Louis takes hold of Harry’s elbow and guides her over to the booze table.

“What shall I have?” Harry asks, peering at the selection. She looks to Louis for her opinion, and Louis decides to grab Harry a fruity cider like hers. “Cool, thanks.” Harry says, mastering the bottle opener a lot faster than Louis had.

They take their drinks and stand just off to the side, in the middle of the lawn. There are people everywhere; a lot more than Louis had imagined but as she’s alluded to before, Niall has a big mouth and a friendly nature so she supposes it’s not  _ that _ surprising. 

Louis feels like a proud parent watching Liam mingle with her guests; she, Jade, Perrie and the two other girls have all formed a fivesome, and to give Liam her dues she is handling the socialising very well. She even has a WKD in her hand, sipping it carefully as she hangs around laughing dutifully at everything the other girls say.

“I need the loo,” Harry announces, bringing Louis out of her daydream.

“I’ll come with you,” Louis says, and they traipse inside with their drinks still in hand. 

Someone, since Louis last walked through the living room, has put up a few ‘happy birthday’ banners and several strategically placed silver and blue balloons. 

“Looks good, doesn’t it?” Harry comments, completely seriously, as they pass through.

Louis snorts. “Uh, yeah. It’s certainly very… nice.”

Louis follows Harry up the rickety old patterned carpet stairs onto the landing. The lampshade hanging from the ceiling is covered in a thick layer of dust and the light emitting from the bulb is hazy at best. There are three doors pulled shut and a fourth that is slightly ajar; the ceramic seashells would be enough to give it away if it weren’t for the fact that they’ve been coming here since they were eleven.

Harry goes first, naturally, and Louis goes to lean up against the opposite door to wait for her.

“Whatcha doing?” Harry asks, turning around in bewilderment when she realises Louis isn’t behind her. “Come in with me, doughnut. You know how dodgy this lock is!”

Louis doesn’t let herself overthink it before agreeing; it’s not like they haven’t gone to the loo together before. She settles on the edge of the bath as Harry pulls her pants down and sits. Her poufy skirt covers her modesty, and the noise of the people down in the garden, the creak of the pipes and the tinny music do a good job of covering the sound of her going.

The toilet roll holder is empty so Louis passes her a new one, and averts her eyes as Harry wipes and stands. She wiggles her knickers back up her hips and flushes the loo with a flourish. As she washes her hands she flicks cold water on Louis, and she punches Harry’s arm in retaliation.

  
  


“Ah finally!” Niall erupts, Zayn and Liam turning in unison to watch Louis and Harry approaching. Louis isn’t an idiot; she knows what it looks like, and true to form Niall doesn’t let her down. “Now you two have finished necking in my bathroom, it’s time for birthday shots!”

Louis ignores Niall’s comment but accepts a shot glass, realising then that she must’ve left her cider upstairs on the edge of the bath. A quick glance over at Harry confirms that her friend has done the same thing.

Niall pours vodka very precariously into their shot glasses, a good glug of it ending up in the grass. In their little huddle of five they clink their glasses together and knock the shots back. Liam hisses in disgust, Zayn and Niall whoop and Harry cringes. Louis just lets hers slip down her throat, burning slightly.

Niall takes another shot but try as she might she cannot get Liam to agree to another, so she helps herself to a third. Zayn wanders off again; apparently she’s struck up quite the friendship with Perrie’s mate Leigh-Anne. Louis beckons Liam over so she doesn’t start panicking again, and with the rest of her attention she focuses on Harry, who is in the process of asking Niall for another shot too. 

Louis watches as Niall throws back shot number four, and Harry shot number two. Feeling like the responsible mum friend – aka Liam – she steps closer to Niall and tries to coax her away from the vodka. 

“Slow down yeah, Nialler? Gonna be on your arse before ten at this rate.”

Niall turns, pink cheeked and bleary eyed, and blows a loud raspberry. “Oh c’mon Tommo, live a little! It’s mine,” Hiccup! “Mine and Leeham’s birthdays, it’s a party! We’re celebrating! C’mon! Shots! Shots! Shots!”

“No!” Louis tries as Ed, Nick and the others come cheering on over raucously, and she gives up. She sighs dejectedly, feeling a hand on her arm.  She looks around to see Liam.

“Just let her get on with it,” Liam says, which is surprising for her. “She’ll be the one feelin’ it in the morning.”

Louis eyes her suspiciously. “Who are you and what’ve you done with Liam?”

Liam laughs weakly. “I’m supposed to be having a good time, right?” Louis nods. “So I’m trying my best. Come on.”

The two of them join Harry on the brick wall that separates Niall’s patio from the lawn. She’s sitting there with her bare legs stretched out, dolly shoes missing, wiggling her toes in the grass and starting on a fresh fruity cider.

They perch on either side of Harry, grinning to each other as Harry murmurs nonsensically to herself, giggling at something unknown. Maybe a grasshopper is tickling her toe?

“All right, Hazza?” Louis asks, patting her leg softly to get her attention. Weird kid. “Having fun there, love?”

Harry seems to falter slightly before looking up, but her grin is broad and only slightly fuzzy around the edges, indicating her buzz. 

“Missed you,” Harry says softly, leaning in dopily. She says it so unobtrusively Louis isn’t sure if she was actually meant to hear it or not. 

“We’ve been together for the past two hours, Haz.” She points out, putting her arm loosely around Harry’s back to support her. The wall may not be high off the ground but Harry would still hurt herself if she went flying backwards off of it.

“No! Before today, silly!” Harry rolls her eyes with fond, slightly drunken exasperation.

Louis smiles, her heart leaping temporarily into her throat. She swallows hard to push it back down. “Scarborough was only three days ago, Hazza.”

Harry shrugs, her curls bobbing around her shoulders. “Three days is a lifetime without my bestie!”

Louis laughs uncomfortably. She is vaguely aware of Liam on the other side of Harry; she is pointedly  _ not _ looking at them but straight ahead. “And how many of those have you had, Harry?” She asks, nodding down at the bottle in Harry’s paws.

Harry shrugs again, holding the bottle up and examining it like she hadn’t realised it was there. “Oh, this is number… three? Four? No, three.”

Louis knows that Harry can’t handle her drink. She is going to have to keep an eye on her. She’s painfully aware of Ed and his idiot friends lolloping about the place, and even though it’s probably unfair she just can’t shake the unfounded fear that they’ll take advantage of her, not listening to her protests and blatantly and cruelly ignoring the fact that she isn’t even interested in boys.

She shakes away the horrible, quickly escalating thought and goes back to keeping Harry upright.

“There’s plenty of crisps still, maybe grab a handful of cheese balls to soak it up a bit?” Louis advises, smiling as Harry giggles at the balls comment.

“But you know I don’t like balls, Lou!” Harry squirms, tipping the bottle back up to her lips. Harry downs most of the drink, and the she lets out a clearly unexpected burp. She shrieks and brings her hands to her mouth, dropping the bottle in the process.

The glass bottle bounces off her knee and onto the ground, splashing her skirt and dripping down her skin as it goes. Somebody groans and another person cheers. Liam springs up and grabs the bottle before it can do anyone any damage, and Louis is left mopping up purple booze from Harry’s shins with a paper napkin.

“What am I gonna do with you, honestly?” She moans, tongue-in-cheek as she dries Harry off. “Can’t take you anywhere can I?”

From where she is crouched on the ground Louis peers up at Harry, who is sitting on the wall still hiding behind her hands giggling and groaning. “I’m sorry, Lou-Lou! Oh, I’m so embarrassing!”

“No you’re not,” Louis sighs. She doesn’t want Harry thinking that. “There you go, all sorted.” She says as she gets to her feet.

Louis looks down at her clean legs and wiggles them happily. She’s grinning happily as she looks up at Louis. “Thank you Louby-Lou.”

Louis just laughs uneasily, needing to toss the wet tissues her excuse to scarper. She goes back inside, turning right towards the kitchen where there are more people and more empty bottles and two Domino’s pizza boxes that Louis doesn’t recall being delivered. 

Ed, Nick and the others that Louis never bothered to learn the names of are standing around laughing about something twatty, but Nick stops them when he notices Louis – not because he’s a gentleman but because he’s a dick.

“What?” Louis mutters, barging her way past the boys to get to the bin. “Move, dickhead.”

“Ask nicely, Louis.” Nick says, calmly. Maliciously. “Say, ‘could you please excuse me, Nick?’.”

“Move, dickhead.” Louis repeats, nice and clearly for him. She’s perfectly capable of standing her ground against these boys; she may be a foot shorter than Nick but at the end of the day he’s just a seventeen year old squirt the same as her. In fact, Louis knows for a fact she’s older than him.

Nick stares her down for a moment, his smirk slowly disappearing from his face. Then, he drags his eyes away from hers and looks over at Ed, laughing. If Louis didn’t know any better she’d say Nick seemed rattled. 

“No wonder no one wants you,” Nick mutters as he finally moves out of the way of the bin. He moves in next to Ed. Louis throws the cider soaked rags into the bin and shoves past them, keeping her head bowed.

They’re only intimidating because of their size, she keeps reminding herself. They’re just trying to scare her because they’re raging with testosterone but their dicks are still tiny. Yes. Thank God she’s a lesbian.

  
  


Louis dashes back outside, blocking out the boys’ ridiculous tittering laughs. She finds Liam, Perrie, Jade and Niall sitting around on the patio looking down at their phones laughing about something. It’s unclear what happened to Harry after Cidergate, but Louis’ natural next move is tracking her down and making sure she’s okay.

“Hey,” She says, aiming her focus somewhere between Niall and Liam. “What happened to Haz?”

Louis catches Perrie and Jade exchanging a look and she rolls her eyes. She persists, “Where is she? You know what she’s like with her drink, I want to keep an eye on her.””

“Where is Harry?” Louis asks again, rolling her eyes and pointedly ignoring the snickers. 

Liam goes to open her mouth but Niall pips her to the post. “I think she went inside.”

_ No she didn’t, _ Louis thinks to herself.  _ She’s just come from inside herself, she’d have seen her. _ “Okay.” She says to shake Niall off. “Thanks.”

Louis doesn’t stop to try and listen to the chatter that picks back up as soon as she stalks off. She goes back inside, ignoring the boys that shout, “Back so soon!” to her as she storms through.

“Fuck you, Nick,” Louis mutters under her breath; pointless really but oh well. They should be friends by rights – so much for LGBT solidarity. 

“If you’re looking for Harry she’s through here,” Ed pipes up next, and Louis spins around so fast she almost gives herself motion sickness.

“Where is she?” She demands. “Ed, where is she? You f-”

Ed just cocks his head back, in the direction of the small utility room off the kitchen. Louis pushes through the group of four boys toward the doorway.

“Hazza?” She calls, accompanied by the lads’ peals of laughter. Twats. “Harry, where are you?”

She finds Harry facing the wall, stumbling around looking confused. Standing in the doorway, Louis clears her throat. 

“Louby-Lou!” Harry exclaims, spinning around and staggering forward. Louis catches her just in time. “This… this isn’t the loo, is it?”

Louis shakes her head sagely. “No, love. That’s upstairs.”

Harry giggles to herself. “Right. Come with me?”

Louis doesn’t think Harry would make it to the upstairs bathroom without her assistance, so she nods hurriedly and takes hold of her best friend’s hand.

When they finally get up the stairs and into the bathroom, Harry carries herself with a lot less dignity than she had done the last time they were in here together. Down come her frilly pale blue knickers and Louis gets a much bigger eyeful than she was expecting.

Harry slumps on her left side, smiling sleepily as she wees.  Louis shifts uncomfortably as it slows down and the eventually fades away. Harry continues to sit there, swaying slightly.

“Haz?” Louis says, her voice sounding stark and echoic in the otherwise silent room. “Haz, don’t fall asleep on the crapper, love.”

Harry snorts with laughter at that and then springs back up. Louis pointedly doesn’t look as Harry wipes and pulls her knickers back up. Harry shoves her hands under the cold tap briefly and then they go back downstairs.

Louis’ not sure how long they were upstairs, she’s sure it wasn’t that long, but by the time they come downstairs again, everyone has reconvened inside. There are bodies speckled around the whole open plan space, with Niall and the other two plus all of Liam’s PE girls sitting in a vague circle on the floor.

“Tommo!” Niall exclaims, lifting her hands into the air and cheering. “Just in time! C’mon, we’re playing truth or dare!”

Harry groans loudly by her side, but she’s smiling. She finds herself a spot on the carpet next to Jade, leaving Louis marooned. 

“Fucking truth or dare, what are we, twelve?” Louis scoffs, catching sight of Ed and his team of prats filtering in from the kitchen too. Nick and two others take the sofa and Ed plops himself down on Nick’s knee and stretching his legs out across their laps.

“If you’re gonna bitch about it just leave, Louis. If not, sit down.” Ed says bluntly, and his words shock Louis into a momentary silence. She stands there rooted to the spot for a moment, her cheeks flaring with crimson despite her best efforts to brush Ed off.

Nobody else seems too bothered about the little exchange; it’s only Louis that really takes any notice of what Ed just said. With irritation and embarrassment in equal measure, Louis finds a space on the floor between Zayn and Leigh-Anne.

Zayn gives her knee a little squeeze as she situates herself, so apparently someone  _ had _ taken notice of Ed’s little jibe. Louis does her best to remain calm, and the next thing Zayn offers her certainly helps; a bottle of vodka.

  
  


The whole thing is a shambles really, but by the time they’re all two questions and  _ a lot  _ of vodka down, everyone is having a whale of a time. After getting off lightly with her first two truths, ( _ ‘have you and Harry fucked?’  _ and  _ ‘have you ever kissed a boy?’ _ – no to both) Louis chooses dare and she should’ve known what was coming.

She’s cajoled into picking dare; she doesn’t want to do it. At first she’s dared to strip naked in the garden, which she point blank refuses. Several other ridiculous ideas are shouted out which she vetoes, but then Ed pipes up, clapping his hands together smugly and Louis’ heart sinks. 

“I’ve got one. You’re gonna love this one, Louis; you won’t be able to turn this one down! I dare you… to kiss Harry.” 

Louis glowers at him, ignoring the nonsensical, giggly ramblings around the circle. Nick smirks mirthfully under Ed and Louis fucking  _ hates _ them both. She doesn’t understand Ed’s motives here; if he is so obsessed with Harry and thinks so little of Louis, why is he doing this?

Louis throws her head back. “You know your obsession is weird, Ed. Make up your mind.”

“C’mon Lou, it’s just a kiss. You two are just friends, right? So it doesn’t matter.” Ed’s tone drips with malice and his eyes are glinting cruelly. 

“C’mon, give the people what they want, Tommo!” Niall joins in obliviously. It’s a good thing Louis loves her because this is not cool. Louis blinks the room back into focus, and looks at her best friend across the circle.

“If you forfeit you gotta drink a mega cocktail!” Niall exclaims, completely inventing the rule on the spot. Louis doesn’t know what the mega cocktail comprises but she can imagine. 

Feeling a bit helpless – she’d hoped this would just blow over but it doesn’t look like it’s going to – she looks across the circle at Harry. Harry is sitting there, cross legged with her lovely big hair and a drink in her hand smiling tersely as Louis makes her grievances known. 

And then Harry just sort of… shrugs. With their eyes burning into each other, olive green meeting deep sea blue, Louis knows that look.  _ Might as well _ , the shrug says. She’s seen it before, when they’ve snuck off to places they shouldn’t, with people they shouldn’t, doing things that they shouldn’t.

This doesn’t feel like real life anymore. Harry is still looking at her and Louis takes a moment to ask herself if this is really happening. The people around them are waiting with bated breath, making Louis feel like she’s backed into a corner. Harry has a faraway smile on her face and she’s bouncing her hands in her lap. 

It’s Ed’s smug arse that is keeping her from backing down, Louis is sorry to admit. “Fine! If it will shut you bunch of freaks up!”

A few voices cheer her on as she shifts onto her knees. She lets her vision go loose and blurry; she doesn’t want to see anyone while she does this, not even Harry if she can help it. As she shuffles across the carpet, feeling self-conscious with all eyes on her, she kneels on an upturned bottle lid. It sends shooting pains up her leg and the surprise sends her falling forwards right into Harry’s arms. Harry just catches Louis in time and they go tumbling down to the floor, Harry’s hair going absolutely  _ everywhere _ and Louis on top of her, a little bit drunk and a lot bit confused.

Louis’ sure she can feel Harry lifting her head to get closer to her, and she’s not entirely convinced that she doesn’t duck down herself. They meet in the middle and kiss; one hand firmly pressed into the carpet, fingers tangled in Harry’s hair. Then, Harry’s hands are in Louis’ own short tresses. Her knee slides off Harry’s leg and lands with a thump between Harry’s thighs, and they’re still bloody going. She’s shell shocked but that doesn’t stop her kissing her best friend back, with matched gusto. Harry’s velvety soft tongue slips into Louis’ mouth and her fingers tug through the baby curls at the bottom of Louis’ neck. Harry continues to lick into her mouth; they’re full on snogging on the floor here, wrapped up in each other, and Louis doesn’t think this is quite what Ed was expecting when he dared them to kiss.

Eventually they have to break apart, and as soon as they do Louis climbs off Harry. She gracelessly gets to her feet and staggers back to her place, cheeks flaming and the unexpected heat of her arousal inside. She sneaks a look to her left and to her right but nobody seems to be bothered about them now, typically. Her entire world has started spinning in the opposite direction and no one gives a toss.

She can’t meet Harry’s eye. She can’t meet anyone’s eye. The game of truth or dare continues for a while but eventually fizzles out at some point though Louis stops paying attention. She sits cross legged between Zayn and Leigh-Anne, picking at the skin around her thumbnail and trying to focus on anything besides the sweet taste in her mouth left behind by Harry’s tongue.

Louis has to find neutral ground. She can’t go to Harry, of course, and even if she’d wanted to Harry’s been swept up by Ed and Nick and the very thought of that makes Louis feel sick. She doesn’t want to face the inevitable chatter of the evening’s events with Liam and Zayn and bloody Niall, and she can’t go home until Doniya shows up to take them all back, so she’s stuck. 

Her brain supplies her with many theories on what Ed, Nick and Harry might be getting up to, and Louis gets so lost in her dark thoughts that when an ice cold hand clamps tightly around her arm suddenly she nearly jumps out of her skin. 

“All right, pet?” Perrie asks, the booze making her Geordie accent even stronger. “You wanna come and hang out with us?”

“Yeah, ‘fanks.” She agrees without hesitating. Perrie smiles and slips her hand from Louis’ wrist to her palm, slotting their fingers together and leading Louis through the living room towards the other girls. They take over the spot in the kitchen where Ed and everyone had been, pre truth or dare.

The girls don’t mention Harry and Louis’ kiss, so the excuses that Louis had been coming up with in her head are not needed. Sliding herself into their conversations isn’t easy while she is still on red alert but eventually she settles in. Perrie offers her another drink and against her better judgement Louis takes it. 

It’s quarter to one in the morning now, which is practically mid-afternoon compared to how late (or early) some people get home from clubbing. Harry’s sister Gemma is twenty two and Louis has heard from Harry that sometimes Gemma doesn’t come home until  _ six _ in the morning.

When she realises it’s Harry she’s thinking of, Louis’ stomach drops again.

Louis sips her drink way too quickly as she tries to decipher the elaborate, fast-paced story that Jesy is telling, full of people and places that Louis doesn’t recognise. As Jesy is talking, Louis spots Liam cautiously approaching, tugging on her bottom lip nervously. Louis does her best to pointedly ignore her old friend, but within a few seconds she can no longer concentrate.

Her eyes glide past Jesy and over her shoulder to where Liam comes to a gentle, hovering stop. “Lou?” Liam says quietly when Louis catches her eye. “Lou, Doniya is here.”

Louis wonders if the four of them had formed a powwow to elect someone to come over and round her up. She wonders if Harry had flat out refused, if Zayn had fumbled over an excuse and if Niall and Liam had argued until Liam ended up drawing the short straw.

“All right,” Louis nods at Liam and hauls herself off the kitchen cabinet she was leaning against and placing her empty drink down. “I’m off,” She says quietly to the crowd. “See you.”

Perrie hugs her goodbye and there are a lot of ‘babes’ and ‘sweeties’ as Louis is eventually expelled from the group. She doesn’t let Liam’s gaze meet hers as she joins her friend. Together they cut through the living room towards the hallway. They step out into the cool early-morning air, with stars overhead and moonlight making the sky a deep sapphire. 

Doniya’s car is parked half on the kerb in front of the house and Harry and Zayn are already inside; Zayn is in the front passenger seat and Harry is in the back.

Doniya is a little more approachable than Greg was earlier and says hello as Louis and Liam approach. Louis gives Niall a quick hug, composing herself as she does, and then goes to climb into the car. Liam has taken the middle seat, with Harry squashed right up in the corner. It’s obviously intentional, planned out when her back was turned.

She gets in, squeezed up against Liam’s side but at least Harry is too inaccessible to reach. Zayn and Doniya bicker as they drive around the various drop points. Geographically, Liam is the first to be dropped off, and Harry climbs out first to let her past. Louis calls a soft goodbye and then retracts her hands to her lap as Harry gets back into the car. Doniya pulls off again and the two minute journey from Liam’s house to Louis’ house seems to stretch on for hours. 

Zayn shuffles around in her seat as they pull up, throwing a smile over her shoulder. “See ya, Tommo.”

“Yeah, see you around. Thanks Dee,” Louis says, and Doniya smiles at her through the rear view. Louis reaches for the door handle, pretending to check she hasn’t forgotten anything, stalling, while she decides what to do. She can’t very well scramble out of the car and ignore Harry. But she can’t look her in the eye either. Taking a deep breath and reaching blindly for the door handle again, Louis flings the door open and calls a hurried goodbye to Harry over her shoulder. 

Thank God for Doniya’s restlessness, because the car is away and down the street before Louis has even fished her door key out of her bra.

She sneaks around the back of the house, through the side gate into the back garden, across the patio and to the back door. She stares through the frosted glass at the distorted darkness of the kitchen before shoving the key into the lock and turning.

The kitchen is warm and smells like dinner and home; Louis’ not sure why that overwhelms her the way that it does. She shuts the door quietly behind her, pulling up the handle to lock it from the inside. She creeps through the kitchen, milky blue light being thrown across the space from the window, the roller blind at half-mast. 

The red light on the oven is like a beacon, and the digital display on the microwave. The lino is cold underfoot and changes to plush carpet as Louis reaches the hallway. 

“Louis?” Her mum’s voice comes softly from the direction of the living room and Louis jumps a foot in the air.

Her heart palpably quivers in her chest as she drops her keys with a clatter and spins around to see her mum leaning against the living room door frame, cloaked in darkness and wearing her dressing gown.

“You scared the shit outta me!” She blurts out, her voice a lot starker and louder than she had intended. Lowering her tone, she continues. “Why are you hiding in the shadows spying on me?”

Jay laughs as she pushes off the door frame. “I’m not spying on you, love, you walked straight past me. I thought you’d see me.”

“Well, I didn’t.” Louis settles on, not bothering to look for an excuse. She starts trying to kick off her boots without undoing the zips.

“How much have you had to drink?” Jay asks next, and Louis groans with embarrassment.

“I’m not drunk!” She hisses, trying to get her right boot off with her left heel. She shoots a hand out to the wall so as not to fall, and that does nothing to support her sobriety case. “I’m not drunk. I had only had about three,” Louis under-exaggerates her consumption quite a bit, but even still Jay’s eyebrows reach her hairline. “But that was over the  _ entire _ night!”

Jay just shakes her head and orders Louis to take a seat on the stairs. Louis is confused but it all happens so quickly, and before she knows it she’s perched on the fourth stair up and her mum is gently pulling her boots off for her.

“There you go,” Jay says quietly, putting the boots down by the front door with the rest of the mass of shoes. “Now, away to bed. And don’t wake your sisters.”

Louis grips the banister on either side and hauls herself up, getting a head rush as she springs up. She makes her way upstairs, Jay following behind her. She kisses her mums cheek before disappearing into the bathroom to have a wee and brush her teeth.

When she steps back out onto the landing five minutes later, her mum’s door is pushed closed. Pale light spills out from under the twin’s door and she’s sure she can hear either Lottie or Fizzy listening to music very quietly in their room.

Back inside the safety of her own bedroom, Louis peels off her jeans and climbs straight into bed, not bothering to change her top or remove her makeup. She’ll wake up in the morning with it all smudged onto her pillowcase and her face, but that’s okay. Nothing feels consequential at the moment, because everything is in such disarray.

 

 


	2. Part Two: About Last Night

 

Louis awakes the next morning having dreamt about nothing memorable. The first thing she does when she opens her eyes is let the memories from last night flood into her conscious. She closes her eyes again and screws them tightly shut, bringing on her headache.

When she finally lifts her head off the pillow and slumps forward the pounding begins. She isn’t hungover, she didn’t really drink enough for that, but she does feel very sorry for herself. It takes a great deal of effort to swing her legs out from under the duvet and over the edge of the bed, and then she sits there for a good twenty minutes just staring into space.

Eventually she hauls herself up, finds some joggers and staggers to the loo. She has a wee and then scrubs the cakey makeup off her face with Clean & Clear. Sans panda eyes she goes downstairs and makes a cup of tea, answers a million questions from her little sisters and then disappears back to bed with her tea and a few biscuits too.

She hunts high and low for her phone, fearing the worst, but then just as she’s about to give up and declare a crisis, she finds it in her jeans pocket that were strewn on the floor last night. She’s at three percent battery so gets it plugged in urgently. Louis’ heart sinks to see all of the messages in her inbox, and she has to gather up the courage to click the little icon with the little red ‘11’.

They’re mostly all from Niall; one from her mum and one from the network prompting her to buy unlimited texts for five pounds. Incidentally, there are none from Harry and Louis doesn’t know how to feel about that.

She pretends to have a hangover so Niall will leave her alone, deletes the network message and ignores the other messages. She puts the wretched thing on silent and shoves it under her pillow to try and resist the urge to keep checking it.

She doesn’t want to hear from Harry, but she’s masochistic and egotistical enough to be half-expecting a message all afternoon. When it gets to half past two and her mum is calling her down for Sunday roast, Harry hasn’t texted her and it’s playing on Louis’ mind a lot more than she expected.

She joins the rest of the family downstairs for dinner, wolfing down her potatoes, chicken and Yorkshire pudding quickly so she can go back to bed. She can hear the twins moaning that Louis gets to leave the table and go back upstairs, but she doesn’t stop to appease anyone.

When she gets back into bed and grabs her phone, Harry still hasn’t texted so Louis goes to the last message she received from Harry and makes the first move. Every minute feels like an hour as she sits staring at the screen, tapping it periodically to stop it going dark. The longer she waits the more she realises that Harry is ignoring her and their little predicament they’ve got themselves into.

To put distance between herself and the outside world, Louis leaps off the bed, leaving her phone behind, and dashes to the bathroom. She locks herself in there and gets the taps running. She crumbles a Lush bubble bar under the flow from the taps and strips out of her clothes, leaving them strewn about the floor. She steps over the edge of the bath and into the red hot water. Slowly she lowers herself in, the heat taking her breath away as it slips over her shoulders. She sinks down under the surface so just her nose and eyes remain above the level; the water lilting slowly and the fragrant bubbles tickling her cheekbones.

Louis can hear her heart beating and all the biological whirring and rustling inside of her. She works hard to match her breathing to the steady rhythm of her heart. With her eyes closed and with the water soothing her taut muscles the tension that she’s been unwittingly carrying in her shoulders for weeks begins to fade away. She forces herself to go loose and slack under the bubbles, wiggling her toes and her fingers and flexing her wrists and ankles.

An undefined amount of time later, Lottie’s shrill whining jolts Louis out of her Zen. She bursts up out of the now lukewarm water, sending a cascade of bubbly liquid flying over the edge of the bath.

On the other side of the door, Lottie is still screaming at her to hurry up. “Lou get outta the bath! You’ve been in there ages!”

“Piss off!” Louis shouts back, her shoulders immediately tensing back up again as she sits on the bottom of the bath, the water sitting just level with her ridiculously flat chest.

“I’m gettin’ mum,” Lottie sulks, then louder, “Mum! Louis’ swearing at me and she won’t get out the bath!”

Sighing an aggravated sigh, Louis hauls herself out of the bath, water splashing everywhere. She shoves her wet feet into her slippers, wraps the fluffy bath towel around her body to cover her modesty and then flings the bathroom door open wide, stomping all the way to her bedroom shouting down the stairs, “There ya go, I’m out! Pathetic child!”

“Louis!” Jay chastises her half-heartedly from the foot of the stairs before Lottie comes thundering back up, scowling at her big sister. She slams the door shut behind her, still bellowing.

“The floor is soaking! Don’t you know how to bath yourself?”

Louis ignores her little sister and hides herself away in her room, grabbing her dressing gown off the back of the door and revealing Baby Spice and her friends. Louis wishes she was seven again really, when the only people her life revolved around were her mum and five pop stars. Thinking about it now, actually, her obsession with Sporty Spice was probably her first girl crush, not that little baby gay Lou knew it at the time.

  


Lottie and the other girls make themselves scarce for the evening, thankfully, and even Jay leaves Louis be until she’s ready to come out of her room herself, by which time it’s quarter to ten.

“Hi love,” Jay smiles softly. She’s stood at the counter mixing something into mayonnaise for tomorrow’s lunch. “Feeling better now?”

Louis nods as she pulls open the fridge door and takes the milk.

“Good,” Jay nods. “Don’t tell your dad you went out and got drunk, I’ll never hear the end of it! _‘She shouldn’t be getting hangovers at seventeen, Jay!_ ’” She mimics Mark.

Louis has many points to argue, but she doesn’t. Objecting to mum referring to Mark as ‘dad’ won’t do anyone any good in the long run, and if she says she’s not hungover Jay will ask why she’s got such a grump on, so Jay thinking she’s hungover is actually probably better than having to confess what happened last night.

“I won’t,” Louis simply settles on.

“What’re your plans for tomorrow?” Jay asks as she dumps the mayonnaise concoction on top of salad leaves, calling it lunch. “I’m at work until one; can you watch the girls until then for me please?”

Louis nods; it’s not like she has a choice. “Fine. I dunno. No plans really.”

“Aren’t you seeing the girls?”

“I don’t know!” Louis exclaims, a bit huffier than she means to. “I mean I haven’t heard from anyone today so I dunno what they’re doing.”

“Well you must be doing something on Wednesday?” Jay keeps on going, rolling her eyes at Louis’ blank expression. “Liam’s birthday. You’ll be seeing the girls then, surely?”

Just the mere thought of it makes Louis’ heart beat out of time. “I dunno, probably yeah. Like I keep saying, I haven’t heard from anyone. But yeah, I guess. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jay smirks. Louis hates it. “Sorry. I won’t ask _any_ more questions.”

Now Louis feels bad. “It’s fine. I’m gonna go back to bed now.”

“Okay love,” Jay says, reaching in front of her to put the salad away. “Give your old mum a kiss.”

Louis rolls her eyes but can’t help but giggle as she quickly pecks her mum’s cheek and disappears back off upstairs.

  


Louis makes it through the morning babysitting without killing any of her sisters, which is pretty good going in her opinion because Lottie was in one of her stupid moods and the twins would not stop going on about the park; they came pretty close a few times.

Louis is so relieved to see her mum’s car swing onto the driveway at quarter past one she runs out the front door to greet her.

“What a welcome home!” Jay laughs as she’s getting out of the car. “What have I done to deserve this?”

“Your children are monsters!” Louis exclaims. Daisy comes dashing out to greet her mum too and shoves herself into Louis to stop herself. “Get off you annoying little shit!”

“Louis!” Jay hisses, giving her The Look. Yes, mum doesn’t like anyone to think they’re _common_ , no. “Come on, inside, the pair of you.”

Jay rounds up her eldest and her youngest babies and ushers them into the house, clucking and fussing over God knows what. Now that Jay is home and Louis is off the hook, she goes back to her spot on the sofa under her duvet cover and grabs her phone.

She caved in the middle of the night and grabbed her phone out from under her pillow, but only because it kept bleating at her that its battery was low. She’d plugged it in to charge and seen several notifications from BBM. She hadn’t felt in the mood to talk to Emily, funnily enough, so she’d ignored BBM completely and gone straight back to sleep. It’s probably the most sensible choice she’s made all month.

Her resolve doesn’t stand up quite so strongly today, though. She’s been talking on and off with a new girl, Katie, all morning and the near-constant interruption from the little ones has almost driven her mad but the conversation is moving itself along nicely.

The girls leave her alone now that mum is home. Lunch is ready by two, good old mum, and after scarfing down cheesy beans on toast Louis is getting herself ready for more lounging about texting with girls when a message from Zayn comes through.

 **Zaynie:** _Goin park, u coming? xx_

She goes to text back and then her heart sinks, remembering the mess she made of her social life over the weekend. Naturally her first question is who else will be there but it’s difficult to ask that without looking suspicious. She agrees reluctantly and once she has the details of when and where, she hauls her arse into the shower and scrubs away the funk of almost twenty four hours under a duvet.

Once she’s clean and dry, damp hair twisted into a stubby little bun, she chooses a hoodie and jeans and then heads downstairs to find her mum.

“I’m going out, mum,” She announces when she finds Jay in the kitchen.

“Okay love, with the girls?” She asks, and Louis nods. Jay looks almost proud. “Where are you off to?”

“Park I think. Not sure; meeting Zayn at the shops before.”

“Okay,” Jay nods, smiling. “And do you need money?”

Louis would ordinarily say no, but when opportunity knocks… “Please.”

She heads out the door ten minutes later with her phone and a fiver stuffed in the left cup of her bra.

  


“All right?” Zayn greets her casually. Louis nods as she sidles up alongside her friend, who looks effortlessly gorgeous in leggings, shorts and a low cut black top.

“Who else is coming?” Louis asks, because the question has been burning in her mind the entire way here.

Zayn shrugs. “Li is coming. Not sure about Haz, she didn’t text me back. Nialler’s gone into town shopping with her mum so, not her.”

Louis can’t help the relief that floods her at hearing Niall won’t be coming. After the events of Saturday night she isn’t ready for the inevitable questions and teasing from her Irish friend, who will undoubtedly take the whole thing as some big joke. And Harry, well, Louis can’t be blamed for her assumptions that the reason she has flaked on Zayn is because she knows Louis will be there too.

“C’mon,” Zayn says, looking at her weirdly. “Let’s get some food. You got money?”

They peruse the aisles, their greedy hands grabbing almost fifteen pounds worth of junk and fizzy drinks. They pay at the self-checkout, a stressful ordeal for all, and then head out of the air conditioned shop back into the stifling late August air.

They make general chit chat as they head in the direction of the park; about school and exams and Christmas and, in very general terms, about the party on Saturday. Louis wonders if Zayn is itching to ask, or if she doesn’t care; she can’t quite tell yet which side Zayn lies on.

As they’re crossing the road, the last leg of the journey before they step onto the field, Liam texts Zayn telling her she’s two minutes away. They loiter by the path, waiting for Liam.

“All right, loser?” Zayn greets Liam with a small smile. “Nice of you to show up.”

“At least I did,” Liam retorts. “Where are the other two, anyway?”

The three of them head across the plain to a quiet spot near some trees, away from the boys that are hoofing a football about by the tennis courts. Liam’s question, innocuous as it is, makes Louis’ stomach turn. She stops chewing for a moment, looking discreetly between her friends before beginning to chew down the rest of her mouthful. Zayn fields the question.

“Dunno,” She answers with a small shrug. “Niall’s out shopping but Harry? Being boring, as always, I guess?”

As if by magic, Zayn’s phone vibrates in the grass. She picks it up, studies the screen with a frown and then throws it back down into the grass, screen locked.

“Yeah, Harry’s not coming,” She announces, looking a curious mixture of disappointed and unperturbed.

“Oh,” Liam says quietly, looking over at Zayn for a beat before looking back down at her feet. “Oh well. Just us then.”

“The best ones,” Zayn says as she uncurls her legs and lies back in the grass.

They chat aimlessly, long pauses between sentences but it’s okay apparently. Louis’ hands are clammy as she picks at blades of grass and beheads dandelions. She feels like her escapades on Saturday evening are the elephant in the room, and even all this open space can’t give Louis the distance from her problems that she needs.

“Lou?” Liam’s voice interrupts Louis’ thoughts, and she looks over at her friend to find her staring back looking concerned. “Lou, what’s the matter?”

Zayn quickly sits up, looking first at Liam and then at Louis. She feels sick with all eyes on her.

“Lou?” Liam presses some more. “Lou, what are you freaking out about?”

“I’m not,” Louis tries weakly, though it’s barely a whisper and it hurts her throat trying to swallow.

Liam scoffs and Zayn’s stare intensifies. “Cut the crap, Tommo. What’s the matter?”

Louis feels close to tears all of a sudden. She squeezes her eyes closed tight to try and alleviate the tears that are rapidly filling behind her lids. She doesn’t dare look. “I… I think I’ve fucked up, girls.”

“Fucked up how?” Liam asks cluelessly. Louis envies her. “Your A-Levels?”

“No!” Louis opens her eyes. How foolish of Liam to assume that Louis is even thinking about her education. “No, with… with Harry.”

“What do you mean?” Zayn asks carefully. Louis watches Liam and Zayn exchange what they think is a discreet look between them. “Saturday night?”

“Yeah,” Louis begins slowly, her shoulders sagging at the confirmation this wasn’t all in her imagination.

Zayn makes a soft noise of recognition. “Ah, that’s not a big deal is it? It was just a kiss.”

“She’s not talking to me. She’s avoiding me.”

“I’m sure she’s fine, she’s probably just-”

“Nah, she definitely is. I sh- I shouldn’t have kissed her. Why did I do that? Why the hell did I listen to fucking _Ed_ of _all_ people? I hate Ed!”

Zayn and Liam are still staring back at her; Liam chewing her fingernails awkwardly and Zayn just brazenly staring.

“You mean you’ve genuinely, _actually_ never got with Harry?” Zayn asks, agog. “Before Saturday, I mean?”

“No!” Louis wails miserably, shaking her head. “I told you! I _kept_ telling you!”

Liam looks full of regret and Zayn looks like she’s finding the confession very difficult to stomach too. Louis lets her gaze drop back down to the grass they’re sitting on. She plucks a daisy from its root and rids it of its delicate white petals while she waits for one her friends to speak again because she sure as hell isn’t going to.

“I’m sorry.”

It’s Zayn again. Louis looks up, squinting against the sun. Zayn is frowning and looking consumed with guilt.

“I’m sorry we gave you both a hard time.” Zayn continues, and Louis shrugs microscopically. “It was only meant to be a joke. Niall took it too far, though, she’s takes everything too far, stupid cow. I didn’t know it affected you so much.”

“She might not be avoiding you,” Liam speaks for the first time. “Maybe she’s genuinely just busy today.”

“No, she’s ignoring me,” Louis confirms dejectedly. “She didn’t speak to me after… all that, and then she didn’t text me all weekend. And now she’s a no-show today ‘cause she knows I’m here.”

Neither Liam nor Zayn look very hopeful, and even though it’s just confirming what Louis already knew, it’s sobering to see their blank faces staring back at her.

“I’ve ruined things now, by taking them too far. I’ve done a Niall!” She exclaims, but nobody laughs.

“You really think things are ruined?”

Louis looks at her pointedly. “Yes, I think there’s a fairly good chance of that, Payno. We snogged and now she’s avoiding me and doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.”

“You don’t know that,” Liam tries to be optimistic. “Try talking to her.”

“I have tried that, Liam,” Louis snaps without thinking. “Sorry. I mean, I’ve tried texting her. What more can I do?”

“Text her again and again and again until she has no choice but to reply,” Zayn suggests with a small smirk.

“Or she’ll get so angry with me she’ll hire someone to come to my house and kill me.” Louis says grimly. She reaches out for another Haribo from the bag of junk. It’s a fried egg. Normally she’d fish two out of the bag and make a boob-related joke but she’s not in the mood for that today.

“Well it’s my birthday on Wednesday; she has to come to that or there’ll be trouble,” Liam says, and both Louis and Zayn smile; Liam wouldn’t hurt a fly. “So you’ll be able to talk to her then. I bet she’ll just laugh it off and you’ll go back to being mates again like before.”

Liam’s words slap her in the face, or at least the reaction that they stir up does.

_I don’t want to go back to how it was before._

Louis is reduced to silence as they sink in. Her tummy is sore with all the lurching it’s doing as she sits there, picking the grass and trying to rid her mouth of the sickly sweet taste of fried egg sweets.

“You… you don’t want that, do you?” Liam murmurs, disbelief and sympathy mixing together as one across her features. Zayn goes onto red alert too. “Oh my God, Lou… what’s- what’s going on?”

Louis feels another wave of emotion wash over her and she’s determined to avoid crying if she can. “I don’t know!” She laughs unstably, throwing her arms up in the air. “I don’t fucking know, all right?! Ed made up that _stupid_ dare and for some reason I listened to him and… I guess I liked it, okay? But that don’t matter because Hazza’s ignoring me and it was a mistake and I’m scared I’ve messed it all up!”

Her outburst is met with stunned silence, and Liam is the one to break it.

“She wanted it.”

It takes Louis by surprise. She snaps her head up. “What did you say?”

“She kissed you back,” Liam says calmly, not looking Louis in the eye as she continues shakily. “I saw it. You fell on her and as you did she lifted her head up to kiss you back. That wasn’t any old kiss either, Lou. You two looked like you were in love.”

Louis scoffs, like a reflex. “Don’t say stupid things like that, Liam.”

Liam barely flinches. “I’m just telling you what I saw, Lou. Sorry.”

Louis considers kicking up a fuss, making sure Liam knows she’s out of line but in the end she knows that would be pointless. Plus, Liam doesn’t deserve it.

“Lou, you need to talk to Harry. Find out if you’re on the same page.”

“I don’t even know what page I’m on,” Louis sighs sadly. “I don’t even think we’re reading the same book, mate.”

“Yeah, and again, you need to talk to Hazza. S’the only way to find out.”

  


With the mood effectively ruined they only last about another half an hour before Liam makes her thinly-veiled excuses and Zayn agrees that maybe she’ll head home and tidy her room or something. That is so unbelievably _un_ -Zayn, but Louis can’t even find the strength to fight.

  


Louis purposely (but she won’t admit it) takes the route home that takes her across the field at the back of Harry’s house. She can’t see a thing, of course, it’s still too bright out for lights on in the house, and the hedge is too high for Louis to be able to see if the conservatory doors are open.

  


“Oh, I’m surprised to see you home so soon!” Jay exclaims when Louis arrives home. “What happened?”

Louis shrugs. “Boring, int’it? Fancied coming home early. I’m going upstairs for a bit now.”

_Just for a change._

“All right, love.” Jay nods, letting her go without a fuss. “See you later.”

Upstairs in the privacy of her room, Louis groans outwardly and throws herself face down on her bed. The lumpy, springy mattress digs into her hip as she does.

She longs for someone to tell her what she should do. Her mum would know but Louis can’t ask her.

‘Going upstairs for a bit’ turns into staying in her bed until teatime. By this time, Louis has worn the battery on her phone almost right down with games and BBM. Liam has been in touch begging profusely for forgiveness but there’s no word from Harry, unsurprisingly.

Louis composes another message for Harry but realises what she’s doing before she presses send, luckily. She’s hollered at from downstairs and goes for her tea, and it’s difficult to enjoy her usual favourite lasagne and chips.

  


“Right!” Jay exclaims, making Louis jump. “What are you not telling me?”

It’s late on Tuesday evening and she and Louis are the only two people still up. Louis pulls herself up to a sitting position from where she was laying on the sofa. “Nothing, why?”

“You’ve been so lacklustre these past few days.” Jay says, and Louis is sure she hears an almost accusing tone in her mum’s voice. “Yesterday you hardly touched your lasagne, you spent pretty much the whole weekend in bed, hardly saw your friends. What’s going on, Lou?”

Louis wonders to herself how long she can keep this bottled up. She tries to brush it off and put it down to ‘nothing’ a further three times but her mum perseveres, and eventually it comes out.

“Harry,” Louis confesses. She feels sick. It’s too late now, it’s out. Jay nods, urging her to continue. “I uh, she’s not speaking to me and I dunno why.”

That’s a lie. She does know why.

“Oh dear, lover’s tiff?” Jay immediately jokes. Louis fixes her with a sharp glare. “Sorry. Well that’s strange, she wouldn’t just stop talking to you for no reason would she? You two are thick as thieves.”

Louis huffs out an uncomfortable laugh. “Yeah, well, not at the minute.”

“What happened?” Jay asks, though Louis is not prepared to confess their extra-curricular tonsil tennis yet.

“Dunno,” She lies, and poorly.

“Well it has to be something, Louis. Best friends don’t just stop talking to each other.”

“Yeah, well they do now.” Louis says petulantly. She can’t even bring herself to come up with anything more substantial.

“You’re all going out for Liam’s birthday tomorrow aren’t you?” Jay asks, and Louis nods. They’re going to Frankie & Benny’s and Louis is dreading it. “I’m sure it will all be sorted out then. You girls have known each other too long to let something silly get in the way of your friendship, I’m sure it will all be fine.”

Louis somehow doubts that, but she just nods and weakly agrees with her mum, just to shut her up if nothing else. She wishes she hadn’t opened her fat mouth now.

  


Jay’s week of earlies continues and Louis finds herself on babysitting duty once again. When she first wakes up the house is silent, so she savours the silence and lies there with her eyes closed. The plans for tonight loom over her like a black cloud and there are still thirteen hours to go.

Outside the door she can hear the twins whispering and giggling. Swinging her legs over the edge and springing to her feet, Louis dashes to the hallway to catch them in the act. They giggle and go scurrying back to their bedroom in that weird twin way that they have.

Despite a morning of aggravation from the twins, the house is still standing when Jay gets home and Louis is counting that as a win. It’s time to start getting ready now, though. She has to be on the 6:15 bus to get to town in time, and the plan is to be one of the first to arrive, so she won’t have to approach the whole group together. Liam and Zayn know her biggest secrets now, and that biggest secret is ignoring her, so Louis is terrified.

She ends up being ready far too early; showered, dried and dressed by half past three. She makes up the deficit by spending almost an hour alternating between looking through her wardrobe and sitting on her bed playing games on her phone.

She has a fit of irrationality and decides that she’s going to do a full face of makeup, and she tips it all out onto her desk to sit and stare at it for a good ten minutes. Her foundation is one that mum passed on to her; it’s a nice enough colour but Louis doesn’t really know how to apply it without looking streaky. Mascara is a weapon as far as Louis is concerned, and even though black pencil eyeliner and a bit of stick concealer is normally Louis’ go-to look, sticking a pencil in her eye is not her favourite thing to do by any means.

Sighing agitatedly, she carries on. She’s ringed one eye and it’s turned out okay. She sort of feels like Avril Lavigne the way it sort of smudges down onto her skin as her eyes water. Deciding that the happy little accident can stay, she sets about trying to replicate it on the other eye.

A few minutes later and she’s considerably more smudged on the left eye than the right, of course. Throwing the kohl down, Louis attacks her face with a makeup wipe and vows to start over, muttering to herself the entire time.

Louis’ less than happy with her face when she leaves the house forty five minutes later, dressed in clothes that don’t feel right and the barest lick of mascara on her lashes and nothing more. Things go from bad to worse when her plans to be early are completely scuppered by the bus timetable.

Arriving at the bus stop with what she thinks is plenty of time to spare, Louis quickly realises that the bus that went past a few minutes ago was the last bus for twenty five minutes. Collapsing down on the graffiti-covered bench, she groans angrily to herself and pulls out her phone. It’s 18:06 and the bus isn’t due until 18:29, meaning she won’t get in to town until at least ten to seven which means she’s going to have to rush to get to where they’re meeting by seven.

“Why do I fucking bother?” She asks herself out loud.

The bus stinks when it arrives, of course it does, and it’s busy too. Liam is texting her incessantly, asking for updates, clearly panicking. But at least with someone to talk to the journey goes by quicker, and when she’s finally let off the bus in town the girls are all stood there waiting for her, exactly what she didn’t want.

Liam rushes forward as soon as Louis steps off the bus, coming in for a hug.

“Happy birthday, Payno,” Louis says softly as they embrace. She gives her shoulders a tight squeeze for good measure.

“Guess what?” Liam whispers. “I got the job! They called me this morning!”

Louis’ face, smushed into Liam’s shoulder, lights up. “Ah, well done Payno! What a good birthday present!”

“What’s a good birthday present?” Niall butts in, coming up behind them. “My company and Italian food? Why yes, I would agree, cheers!”

Liam rolls her eyes as they break apart, and Louis just smiles fondly. Zayn smiles too and says a quick hello, but Louis can’t bear to look her in the eye. Her heart is hammering hard in her chest knowing that Zayn knows. It’s too much to bear. Harry is there, next to Zayn, _close_ to Zayn. Louis’ not sure if she’s only noticing the proximity because she’s extra sensitive.

“Hiya,” She says, vaguely, to the two of them, not really making eye contact. She’s not sure her nerves could stomach anything more.

“Hey Lou,” Zayn says, and a beat later so does Harry. It’s quiet and it’s almost lost in the hustle and bustle of the bus station.

Zayn throws her arm around Liam and the two of them lead the way, leaving Louis, Harry and Niall to follow behind. Niall carries the conversation, separating Louis from Harry.

The restaurant is heaving but they’ve got actual _reservations_ in Liam’s name, and so they’re led through the crowds to their booth without problem. Louis goes into the booth first, sliding right across to the corner. Zayn shuffles in next to her and Louis watches discreetly as Niall shuffles in opposite her, with Liam taking the middle space and Harry cramming in on the other side.

Louis looks around the group with trepidation as the waiter takes their drinks order, careful to avoid one set of olive green eyes in particular. It’s Coke’s all round because Liam’s big ‘17’ badge sort of gives them all away. The conversation picks up naturally around Louis but she takes a backseat, letting everyone else around her settle in and start enjoying themselves.

She laughs when she’s supposed to and contributes a little, but when their sharing platter comes she has no choice but to speak up as she dives in for a slice of garlic bread.

With the jaunty music that plays and the electric atmosphere around their booth, Louis’ initial hesitance is soon a distant memory. She catches Harry’s eye sometimes; the curly haired girl laughs uncontrollably at something Niall does, she looks thoughtful as she sips her drink with a straw, her eyes light up as she chews down a breaded mushroom.

As she swallows she offers Louis up a small smile, and it feels like the barriers have been lifted after that. It’s not like they normally are; the light banter and easy conversation is still slightly stilted and there is no direct communication between the two of them, only mutual laughing at what the others are doing and saying.

Her chicken burger isn’t nearly as appetising as she wishes it was, but she forces it down all the same. Niall reaches over and nicks a couple of chips, but Louis can’t find it in herself to be bothered. When pudding comes there is a sparkler and gold dusted chocolate balls in Liam’s ice cream, and she just about dies of embarrassment when Niall tries to start up a rousing rendition of _Happy Birthday._

Louis manages a giggle at that and locks eyes with Harry directly across the table as she does. Harry smiles back, giggling into her hand and then letting her gaze drop away slowly. Harry absolutely paralyses Louis in that moment; she has absolutely no idea how she is supposed to continue, and eating her chocolate brownie dessert is the furthest thing from her mind.

Niall soon wants out to go to the loo, so Liam and Harry both have to move to let her out. As they shuffle out, Harry hurriedly announces that she’ll go with her, and so the two of them trot off. Louis watches with her heart in her mouth as Harry and Niall retreat, agonising over what may or may not be said between the two girls in the confines of the restaurant toilets.

“Are you all right?” Liam asks, and Louis feels instant guilt. “You look like you’re about to burst into tears, Lou.”

Louis’ eyes flit from Liam to Zayn in a panic. Zayn is looking back at her sympathetically. Louis _hates_ that.

“I’m sorry, Li. I’m sorry I’m ruining your birthday.”

“You’re not!” Liam looks horrified at the mere suggestion. “I feel bad that you’re sat here feeling so bad.”

“I’m all right,” Louis lies. “The garlic bread was ace.” At least that part’s not a lie.

Zayn smirks and Liam rolls her eyes. “You gonna talk to her?”

Louis’ eyes travel over to the door she’d last seen Harry disappearing behind. Coast is clear; her heart stops beating quite so fast. “I dunno,” She sighs, shrugging her shoulders. “What’s the point? I can’t see it getting any better, but it doesn’t feel like it can get much worse either. I bet they’re in there now talking about me.”

“They wouldn’t,” Liam says, ever the peacekeeper. “Niall doesn’t know, does she?”

“She knows enough,” Louis replies glumly. She reaches for her ketchup splattered napkin and tears a shred of it off. “Did Harry say anything before I arrived?”

They both shake their heads dutifully but Louis isn’t sure if she completely buys that.

“And did she seem normal or was she quiet?”

“Normal,” Zayn comments after a slight pause. Louis is even more curious. “Normal for Hazza, at least.”

Louis smiles and even Liam laughs, despite herself.

“I’m just gonna leave it I think. For now.” Louis clarifies, and Liam starts biting her lip. “What?”

“Nothin’ just…”

“I’m not about to ruin your birthday, Li.”

“No, that’s not what I was gonna say,” Liam says cryptically. Louis just stares back at her, prompting her to continue. “I just… I think you two’d make a cute couple.”

Louis scoffs. Obviously Liam thinks that, the simpleton that she is. “Well it doesn’t matter does it? nothing matters now. I’ve ruined it now. I just have to wait and see what happens now. I guess I’ll have to find new mates in year thirteen, if Harry gets all of you lot.”

“Why would Harry get us?” Zayn asks at the same time Liam says, “Shut up, don’t say that!”

“Well it’s true isn’t it!” Louis exclaims, flinging her arms in the air. “I’ve messed everything up now and it’s obviously freaked her out because she’s not speaking to me.”

“It’s not like you two can talk about it with us lot here.” Liam tries to mediate.

Louis opens her mouth to protest, but then stops herself. Sighing, she slumps back against the booth. “I guess not. She’s had all week, though.”

“So have you,” Zayn says, and it takes Louis by surprise. She turns to Zayn and frowns. “I’m just saying, she could well be feelin’ the exact same way you are right now, mate. You don’t know.”

That has Louis stumped. She has no time to think of a comeback for Zayn because she spots Niall and Harry reappearing from the toilets at that moment.

“Shut up, they're coming back.” She hisses, narrowing her eyes at Zayn and reverting back to normal as the two girls get back to the booth. Liam moves and Niall shuffles back in, followed by Liam and then last of all, Harry.

“Everything okay?” Harry asks, addressing the whole table of course but Louis can't help but spring to attention at the sound of her voice. Blushing, she looks back down at the table top and sinks back into silence.

“Yeah, all good,” Liam takes the question. “We need to work out how we’re paying.”

Niall and Zayn sigh aggravatedly at that, and collating their various notes and coins in the middle of the table and fractioning out the bill takes them an undisclosed amount of time that would’ve made their old maths teacher cry.

“Okay, I think we’re there,” Liam finally concludes. She has five piles of money in front of her, and the waiter smiles at them condescendingly as Liam slides it all across the table with an embarrassed smile.

 _Prick,_ Louis thinks to herself as she watches him saunter off, laden down with their money. He disappears behind a post and as Louis pulls her focus away, she catches Harry’s eye.

For a moment, Harry’s face is unreadable and neutral, but Louis can't look away. Her heart’s beating too fast again, making her feel dizzy and cold. Then, Harry smiles; just a small smile that barely tugs on the corner of her lips. She reaches up to tuck a curl behind her ear as she does and she seems to blush as she looks away, giggling down at her lap.

Louis blinks it away; sure that it was just her imagination, and when she glances back in Harry's direction next time, Harry is looking at Liam and doesn’t meet her eye again.

Louis falls into step at the back of the group as they shuffle out of their booth and head for the exit. Liam insisted on leaving a tip for their waiter, who, in Louis’ personal opinion, was an arsehole who doesn’t deserve it. Outside it’s now dark but still fairly warm; the inky blue sky overhead is broken up by plenty of stars and the odd shadowy suggestion of cloud. Niall rambles aimlessly as they stand around waiting for their respective lifts to arrive. Louis shifts nervously; she’s hoping she can stand around until everyone’s gone and then sneak around to the bus stop without being questioned.

Doniya is the first to arrive for Zayn, and then Liam’s mum Karen arrives. With Zayn and Liam gone, Louis’ throat begins to feel a bit tight and itchy as she debates in her head whose lift will show up next, Niall’s or Harry’s.

She watches Karen’s car until it disappears from view, and then starts praying for Anne’s silver Vauxhall to appear on the horizon. The three of them must look like complete strangers the way they stand around, barren deserts of space between them. Louis can almost feel Niall’s efforts not to stare, though. She would imagine Niall knows something is up by now, and she can practically _feel_ the effort Niall is putting into not making things awkward. Shame for her it’s not working.

Things get worse when it’s Maura’s car that pitches up next. She’s got nowhere to run anymore.

Niall pulls her into a quick hug. “Good luck,” She whispers roughly in Louis’ ear. She wants to scoff, feign indifference and ask Niall what she could possibly need luck for but it happens too fast. All of a sudden Niall is in the front seat of her mum’s car speeding away and Louis is on her own with Harry for the first time in what feels like weeks.

Louis scolds herself for how ridiculous this whole thing is. Harry is her best friend, has been since 1998, this really shouldn’t even be an issue. There’s a momentary silence before they brave looking at each other.

“And then there were two!” Harry says shakily with an unstable chuckle, battling with a loose strand of hair that won’t cooperate.

“Yep,” Louis agrees, motioning to where Harry is fighting with her unruly do that is currently wrapping itself across her forehead. “Are you all right there?”

Harry giggles again and just pushes all her hair back off her face, holding it down with her hands. “There, that’s better. So I guess this is my life now.”

Louis can’t help but smirk. “Suits you.” Harry grins. “Your mum’ll be here soon.”

Harry nods, looking over her shoulder. “What about Mark, what time’s he coming?”

“Oh uh… he’s not. I’m just gonna get the bus?” She murmurs, not sure why it’s coming out like a question.

Harry’s eyes go wide and she takes her hands off her head. “What! No you’re not, don’t be mental! My mum will take you home! Why didn’t you say anything?”

Louis shrugs awkwardly. “It’s all right, really. I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, and neither will mum,” Harry argues. “God, you dingbat! Do you know how dodgy the bus is at this time of night?”

Louis has to smile. “It’s barely ten o’clock, Haz. It’s not even properly dark.”

“Stop it Lou, you’re not going home on your own. What if you get murdered at the bus stop? Then it’ll be my fault and what the hell would I tell your mum? You’d haunt me for the rest of my life and then when I died myself you’d find me in the afterlife and kill me all over again!”

Louis stands there with a bemused smile tugging on the corner of her lips as Harry’s tirade comes to a close. “Cool speech, Hazza.” She snorts. “Are you done?”

Harry rolls her eyes. “C’mon, what kinda best friend would I be if I let that happen though?”

 _Best friend_ , is all Louis hears. Hearing it makes her insides sparkle and fizz with the glimmer of hope Harry offers. She wants to grab it and run before it can disappear. Best friend. Best friend. _Best friend._

“Come on,” Harry says. “I’ll text my mum and tell her I’m staying out for a bit longer. Let’s go and sit in McDonald’s. We can get milkshakes!”

Louis allows herself to be swept up in Harry’s plans as they make their way together back towards town. All of the shops are closed now, of course; they pass by the front of Debenhams with its massive yellow spotlights and mannequins ready for autumn in their tartan and denim combos.

McDonald’s isn’t overly busy because it’s a Thursday. They queue together and with the loose change in their pockets they get a large vanilla milkshake to share. They take it to the upstairs level, where there are only two small clusters of diners on opposite ends of the restaurant. Harry leads the way to a small table for two in the corner and they sit down opposite each other.

“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard…” Harry hums under her breath as she reaches for the deceptively light cup to take the first sip.

“Girls,” Louis reminds her, smirking as Harry realises and creases into a loud laugh.

“Oh yeah, that’s what I meant! My milkshake brings all the _girls_ to the yard!”

Louis’ laughter dies uncomfortably and thankfully Harry is too busy singing to notice.  

“So! It was a nice tonight wasn’t it?” Harry reflects, and Louis nods. “I’m glad Payno had a nice birthday. She deserves it, doesn’t she?”

“She does,” Louis agrees, because if there’s anyone that deserves the world, it’s Miss Liam Payne.

Harry nods enthusiastically. “And I got spaghetti, I’m always happy with spaghetti!”

It is true. Anne used to make them spaghetti Bolognese almost every Friday evening after school between the ages of seven and about thirteen. Louis smiles at the memory and despite herself she giggles. “Good,” She says as the chuckle wears out. “I’m glad.”

“I don’t think she really enjoyed her party,” Harry confesses quietly. “So I’m happy we did this tonight for her.”

“Yeah,” Louis agrees, but then she’s lost for words. More silence follows; maybe Harry is gathering herself too and isn’t sure how to go about this. Louis keeps her head bowed but looks up through her lashes at Harry. She’s fiddling with a snag in her sleeve and chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully.

When Harry finally does resume, she speaks slowly, eyes trained directly on the loose thread. “I guess we need to talk about what happened, Lou.”

Louis’ blood runs icy cold through her veins, making them feel tingly and weightless. “Yeah we do.” She agrees raspily.

“First I want to apologise.”

“Haz-”

“No,” Harry interrupts. “Let me say this, please Lou. I’ve been rehearsing in my head what I’m gonna say and I need to get it out. I’m sorry for blanking you these past few days. I’m sorry that my idiot ‘friends’ have been giving you such a hard time lately. It’s my fault Ed’s being the way he is and I feel so guilty, Lou, I really do.”

“Haz, it’s not your fault Nick and Ed are dickheads, okay?”

“Yes it is!” Harry insists, sighing like what she is keeping inside is physically hurting her. “Look, I… I need to tell you somethin’ Lou, and I would say promise you won’t get mad but actually it’s up to you how you react, okay? It’s not up to me to tell you how you need to feel just to make myself feel better.”

Louis is helplessly endeared but also extremely anxious. “Haz, can you just spit it out, you’re scaring me.”

“Sorry,” Harry yelps, sitting up in her seat. “Okay, so… I told Ed something, and… I think I know why he’s being the way he is. I… oh, fuck this is so hard!”

“Harry, please!”

“All right!” Harry cries out, gripping the edge of their table. Just looking at the milkshake between them is turning Louis’ stomach. Harry takes such a deep breath Louis can _hear_ it. “I told Ed I like you!”

“You… what? Like, as in friends? What’s the problem with that?”

“No,” Harry says, screwing up her face. “Well yes of course as friends, but… like, more than friends too.” Harry’s face falls as Louis subconsciously twists her features into a look of confusion. “Oh shit, see? This is why- just forget I said anything, please?”

“No,” Louis says. “What are you saying, Haz? Do you…”

“Is it not obvious, Lou?” Harry asks, slumping back down in her seat with a defeated harrumph. Her small, narrow shoulders sag with the weight of the world upon them.

“No?” Louis says quietly, the big boulder in her throat making it difficult to get anything up and out.

“I kissed you, Lou!” Harry exclaims quietly. “And what’s more, I wanted to! Last year I let everyone get under my skin with their questions and in the end I just got weak. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what it’d be like if what they were saying was true. It just… it just grew from there really. I’m sorry; I know I’m a bad friend.”

“It was a dare,” She hears herself saying, and the look on Harry’s face makes her immediately wish she could invent time travel.

“I know… I know that’s all it meant to you, that’s why I’m sorry.”

“No, Haz listen. That came out wrong. I didn’t… I didn’t mean it was _just_ a dare. I just… well. Technically I kissed you first, because Ed dared me to.”

“Yeah, but I kissed you back.” Harry says, and Liam’s words from earlier in the week ring true in Louis’ ears.

“Liam said that too,” Louis remembers, and Harry smiles minutely, briefly. “I didn’t believe her.”

“Well, it’s true.” Harry says with an air of reluctance. “I’m sorry I’ve made things weird between us.”

“It’s all right,” Louis murmurs. She picks up the milkshake but the smell of it makes her want to throw up. She puts it back down; the thickness in her throat making her want to gag.

“Lou?” She hears Harry’s timid little squeak, and she looks up. She didn’t realise she’d zoned out there and she doesn’t know how long she was silent for. Blinking the room back into focus, Louis looks across the table at her best friend. Harry looks white as a sheet and she’s made good work of the snag in her sleeve and now is busy carving a chunk out of her thumb with her index fingernail.

“Thinking about what?” Louis finally communicates, and Harry looks blank. “You said they got under your skin and you started thinking about it. Thinking about what, Harry?”

“Us,” Harry says softly, dropping her gaze so Louis can’t make eye contact. “What it would be like if I was your girlfriend. I let it go too far, I’m sorry, Lou.”

“Do you still think like that?”

Harry hesitates but then nods. “I’ll get over you,” She says, and she speaks with a confidence that doesn’t reach her eyes. “If I have to I will.”

 _If I have to_ , Harry says. She’s still holding onto the hope that she won’t have to get over Louis. Louis recognises that feeling of hope, and that gives her all the encouragement she needs to open her mouth and talk Harry down from the precariously high point that she’s got herself to.

“I… I think I need to say something too,” She starts shakily, and the look on Harry’s pale face is one of absolute terror. She doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t even nod in acknowledgement. “I talked to Liam and Zayn about what happened.” Harry nods. “I thought it was my fault. We… did that, and then you disappeared and it seemed like the whole group was falling apart, because of me.”

“No, Lou-”

“It’s all right,” Louis waves her hand to pause Harry. “So, I talked to them. Obviously they were there, they saw what happened at the party. I said that I was worried I’d made things weird for us now, and that I was confused about what happened. But then… then Liam said that you kissed me back, but I didn’t believe her.”

Harry nods, taking it all in. Thoughtfully she poses, “What were you confused about?”

“I think I enjoyed it.” Louis confesses, and she doesn’t miss the little twitch in Harry’s shoulders, the tinge of pink that races to her cheeks. “I didn’t believe Liam when she said it though, I couldn’t let myself believe it because you’d gone ghost on me and ditched us all that day and you weren’t texting me back-”

“Sorry about that,” Harry says sheepishly. “I didn’t know how to face you.”

Louis scoffs. “Neither did I! I still don’t know what I’d have done if you’d’ve _actually_ turned up.”

Harry smiles minutely. “So you enjoyed it then?”

Louis can feel the tentative elation and glee in Harry’s voice, and it’s an amazing feeling to know that she is the cause of it. She nods to confirm, and with that simple action it’s all out in the open now. It feels odd; like relief at having the weight of her own uncertainty removed, but also a little bit like she’s drowning in how massive this is and the implications for their future. One thing she hadn’t counted on though is in the end of how easy it would end up coming out. She’d built it up in her head to be a lot more than it ultimately ended up being.

Harry’s own relief comes out as a nervous, wobbly giggle and Louis can’t help but smile too; it’s infectious Harry’s laughter. “Shit!” Harry exclaims shakily, covering her face with her hands and laughing hysterically behind her palms. “I can’t believe I just told you I like you! This is mad! And you like me back, what the hell!?”

“Haz,” Louis reaches across the coax Harry’s hands away from her face. “It’s all right, yeah? We’ll be all right no matter what?”

She’s not sure if she’s looking for reassurance or trying to give it, but it feels good to see Harry immediately nod in vehement positivity.

“We will,” She promises. “Bessie mates for life, no matter what.”

They both giggle wetly at that; they used to say that _all_ the time in the first few years of secondary. Louis can’t speak for Harry, of course, but it was about that time she was starting to realise that she wasn’t quite like the other girls around her, turning to putty when the year eleven rugby lads were about, and the support of her best friend was sometimes the only thing in her life she felt sure of.

“What do we do now?”

Harry shrugs, clearly still a bit giddy. She’s trying to tamp down her smile. “I think we need to spend some more time together just chatting and getting everything out there. I dunno about you but I’ve got loads more I wanna say. Loads more I need to apologise for too.”

“You don’t Haz,” Louis tries to reassure her. “Whatever it is we will get over it, we always have.”

“Will you come over tomorrow? We can do something or go somewhere if it’s not raining.”

Because of course, even though it’s August there is no guaranteeing the weather. Louis agrees in a heartbeat, of course she does.

“Yeah, definitely. I’ll see if I can get old Johannah to cough up a tenner.”

Harry smiles. “Nice. Maybe we could go bowling – no wait, weird shoes. Cinema? Hmm, can’t really talk in the cinema. Pizza Hut! Oooh yeah, pizza. Wait, Pizza Hut’s mega expensive isn’t it. Oh well, we can just-”

“Haz!” Louis cuts her off. “Let’s just see tomorrow, shall we?”

Harry giggles embarrassedly and nods. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

Louis’ stomach has miraculously settled now and they polish off the rest of the milkshake while Harry texts Anne and asks her if they can be picked up now. Louis checks with Harry that Anne doesn’t mind getting her too, and Harry sends a follow up message that simply says _‘Take Lou home too please x’_ and that’s that.

They chat idly while they wait, just about benign, trivial stuff like they would at any other time or day. Louis isn’t sure if she’s still got a rosy blush in her cheeks but they feel like they’re burning. They’re definitely aching, from all the grinning and laughing she’s doing. In the time they’ve been here the entire top deck has cleared out, and that’s probably for the best with the way Harry’s hyena cackle is echoing around the place.

Harry’s phone vibrates on the table top some ten minutes later, and the two of them spring up. They walk towards the staircase together, shoulders bumping and Harry’s wild hair bouncing around and tickling Louis’ bare shoulders.

“Put your cardi back on,” Harry murmurs as they head for the door. “I bet it’s got cold by now.”

Louis fondly rolls her eyes as she slips the item back over her shoulders. Harry throws a quick look back over her shoulder to make sure Louis’ done it, and smiles gladly when she sees that she has.

It is indeed very chilly when they step outside, but thankfully Louis can see Anne’s car parked over in the taxi lane. They link arms and hurry over together, sharing a secret smile as Harry gets in the front and Louis slips into the backseat.

Anne fusses and clucks like a proper mum when Harry tells her mum that Louis was planning on getting the bus home.

“The bus!” She keeps muttering under her breath with a fond shake of her head. “Honestly Louis, there’s no way you’re getting on the bus when I’ve got a perfectly functioning car and I’m going that direction anyway!”

Louis just grins sheepishly and profusely thanks Anne, just like her own mother taught her.

The journey is only just over five minutes from start to finish. Harry has the radio on, bobbing along to the beat. When they pull up at the kerb outside Louis’ house Harry swivels around in her seat and gives Louis the biggest, purest grin. Again, that feeling that she is responsible for that makes Louis’ heart swoop. She’s also absolutely knackered; emotionally she’s been through the ringer this past week.

“See you tomorrow?” She asks then glances briefly over her shoulder at Anne. “Oh, Lou’s coming over tomorrow, is that all right?”

Anne just rolls her eyes. “If I said no?” Harry promptly ignores her mum.

“I’ll text you, okay?” Louis says. “Thanks for the lift, Annie.”

“You’re more than welcome, darling. See you tomorrow, love.”

“Bye Lou!”

“See you soon, Hazza.”

Louis waves from the driveway and then slips through the gate to the back garden; light glows through the frosted glass pane of the kitchen door and through the gaps in the venetian blind. Louis lets herself in, finding her mum sitting at the table with her calculator, a magazine and a notepad.

“Hi love,” Jay smiles, peering up over the top of her glasses and squinting. She frowns as she tries in vain to blink Louis into focus. Pulling the glasses off with a huff, she sets them down in front of her and tries again. “That’s better, I can see you now. So, how was it? Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah, was good,” Louis says, slipping into the dining chair opposite from her mum.

“What did you have to eat? Was it nice? Did you have enough money for a pudding?”

Louis nods to the second question. “I had a chicken burger. It was okay. Nice.”

“Mmm, chicken burgers!” Jay exclaims, her eyes lighting up. Louis looks down at all the papers on the table to see it’s a Weight Watchers magazine open on some stir fry recipe, and a shopping list that is nearing completion. “Don’t talk to me about chicken burgers; I’ve decided I’m starting Weight Watchers again!”

Louis smiles, shaking her head. “And yes, I had pudding - chocolate brownie!”

“Oi!” Jay exclaims, laughing as she reaches across the table to swat at Louis.

“Dead warm it was! With chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream!” Louis continues, laughing loudly.

“You little bugger!” Jay exclaims, picking up her magazine again and beginning to flick through. She carries on, “So how were the girls? Did Liam have a nice birthday?”

“Yeah, think so,” Louis says. “She seemed to be happy.”

“Good,” Jay smiles as she peers over the top of her magazine, glasses back on. “And I’m guessing from the happier look on your face that you and Harry worked out your differences?”

“Oh uh, I guess… yeah. I’m uh, I’m gonna go over there tomorrow.”

“Ah that’s lovely, sweetheart.” Jay smiles again, looking back down at her page. “Told you you’d work it out, the two of you. Thick as thieves, what did I say?”

“Yeah,” Louis agrees quietly. Luckily, Jay is too engrossed in her magazine to question her further. Louis sits there for a moment before getting up and making herself a glass of milk.

“Put the kettle on love, there’s a good girl.” Jay calls, reaching out for her empty mug and holding it out without even taking her eyes off her page.

Louis rolls her eyes as she snatches the cup, rinses it, throws in a tea bag and gets the milk _back_ out of the fridge. Waiting for the kettle to boil and then pouring in the liquid, squeezing all of the life out of the bag and then dumping in the milk is actually quite therapeutic. It gives Louis’ heart a chance to return to its normal pace.

“Thanks babe,” Jay says softly once it’s ready, reaching out and taking the steaming hot mug from Louis.

Louis sits down and curls one leg underneath her bum. She reaches over and picks up a hair band that is on the table top. It is glittery purple with a little kitten on it, so it’s probably Daisy's or Phoebe’s. She stretches the elastic between her thumb and forefinger, extending the band as far as it will go without pinging off her finger.

“You alive in there, Louby-Lou?” Jay asks, snapping Louis out of her day dream. With her glasses back off her nose yet again, twiddling the arm around and around, her mum is staring back at her with concern.

Louis insides do a little jig and she swallows thickly, wincing slightly against the dry scrape. It’s now or never; there may never be a better time. She opens her mouth.

“Mum, can I talk to you about somethin’?”

  


Louis and her mum stay up way later than intended chatting everything over. It would seem it has been a long overdue catch up though, because they talk almost non-stop the entire time.

A lot of what they talk about is stuff that Louis’ never told anyone. They talk about everything, starting at Harry and Louis coming out last year. Louis was lucky enough to have Jay’s full support at the time, and her coming out to her family at home was simple, comparatively. There were a few cringy moments when the twins said things that maybe they shouldn’t, but Louis wasn’t unreasonable enough to hold any blame against them; they were barely eight years old at the time. Fizzy was wise beyond her years in her acceptance and understanding when Jay told them, and Lottie was completely indifferent, which was good enough for Louis. _You’re still my annoying big sister, what’s the difference,_ Lottie had said.

Then, with Harry’s permission, Louis told her mum that actually she wasn’t alone in what she was going through, and Harry had really been a massive support to her. Harry had come out to their group a few weeks before; within the hour almost the news reached Ed and Nick, and then within a few short hours it seemed even the teachers knew. Harry seemed unscathed; immune to the gossip and still the happy-go-lucky scatterbrain she always was. Seeing that had empowered and encouraged Louis, and Harry had held her hand when she took advantage of a rare quiet moment in the common room to tell the other three that she too was a lesbian.

Again, news travelled fast and inevitably, everyone put two and two together and came up with five. But Louis and Harry had agreed, at least in the short term, that everyone assuming  they were together was a much better reaction than people turning on them in disgust, so they’d ran with it. It was a bit of fun, the chance to crack a few jokes and be a bit silly together. Louis had always anticipated Harry finding someone - of _course_ she would, she’s _gorgeous_ – and that would be the end of their little play pretend. But, it never happened. It was okay though, they knew they were just friends so what did it matter what anyone else thought? Niall was annoying, sure, but it was something they could live with.

Soon enough though, it did start to get boring. Niall thought herself pretty bloody hilarious, of course, like maybe she thought if she said it enough it’d become true? Louis realises she’s not sure when the lines started to blur for Harry, and she guesses that’s something quite important that she needs to ask tomorrow. She knows for herself the idea of _actually_ going out with Harry had never once crossed her mind until about three weeks ago, but somehow she doesn’t think Harry’s journey was quite the same.

As she’d got to the more recent part of her story, Louis had started to feel embarrassed. She _really_ didn't want to tell her mum about this stuff but they’ve always been close; Louis supposes that having five daughters makes one quite insusceptible to hormonal embarrassment. Regardless, confessing their kiss at Liam’s party was very embarrassing but Jay had just smiled fondly with her head gently tilted to one side and nodded along with everything Louis said, prompting Louis to eventually settle and feel comfortable enough to keep going.

“I’m happy for you, love. I wish you and Harry all the best, I really do. You know I love that girl like one of my own.” Jay says. “I’m sorry, though, if I ever made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me. I’m always here, love.”

Louis knows that. She knows that more than anything. She’s had many people let her down in her short life but her mum has never been one of them.

“I know, mum,” She assures her. “I will tell you more from now on.”

“Good girl.” Jay smiles kindly, her eyes wandering to the wall clock above Louis’ head. “Christ, look at time! We’d better go up, love.”

Jay locks up for the night and makes a face as she puts away the milk that Louis had forgotten to earlier. She reaches behind the fridge for the light switch and they make their way across the living room towards the stairs in the dark.

“See you in the morning, love,” Jay puts the upstairs landing light on and rolls the dimmer switch right round so it’s barely illuminated. “I’m just gonna lock the front door.”

“Night, mum.” Louis whispers, making her way up the shadowy staircase.  There are pictures of all five of them going up the stairs; to Jay’s credit they’re all their most up to date school photographs. Bathed in fuzzy amber light, Lottie doesn’t even look that gawky, and Fizzy’s eyes don’t look _that_ buggy and the twins don’t look _quite_ as alien-like. Louis smirks to herself, but purposely drags her eyes straight over her own awful mugshot without looking at it.

She finds it difficult to settle; still buzzing on momentum from her chat with her mum. The floorboards creak as Jay passes by Louis’ door. Louis listens as she checks in on the four younger girls before disappearing into her own room, then silence falls once again.

Louis slips out of her clothes and back into the t-shirt and shorts combo she wore to bed _last_ night. She clambers into bed with her phone and sees that while she was downstairs chatting she’d received a message from Harry.

 **Hazza:** _Hey Louby-Lou. Thank you for tonight, I feel loads better. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. Sleep well and I’ll see you soon. H xxx_

Her heart does somersaults in her chest as she texts back as fast as her fingers can swipe the keypad.

_‘Sorry babe, was talking to mum. Happy u feel better, see u tomorrow xxxxx’_

It’s at least another hour before Louis stops picking up her phone to check for a reply. Her eyes feel heavy and she is exhausted to the bone but sleep seems impossible to come by, but then, all of a sudden she’s opening her eyes to a nice view of her bedroom ceiling, light filtering into the room.

It seems like a nice morning out there; the sun appears to be shining on South Yorkshire but there is a still a far off howl of snapping wind because, well, it’s South Yorkshire.

The events of the past few weeks and their culmination last night come flooding back to Louis as she lays there in the silence. She has to mentally retrace her steps to reassure herself that it was all real; it actually happened. The proof, however, is in the message from Harry that is sitting there at the bottom of their message thread.

As if by magic, as Louis is gawking at her screen, a new message from Harry pops up.

 **Hazzy:** _Morning! I hope it was a good talk? I hope you slept well. Still coming over today? Mum and Gems are off out so you can come over whenever and we will have the place to ourselves xxx_

Followed promptly by two more:

 **Hazzy:** _To talk I mean!_

 **Hazzy:** _Fuck!!!_

Louis snorts as she reads the messages, wondering if any more are coming but it seems Harry wants to quit while she’s ever so slightly ahead. But in all seriousness, it sort of hits Louis how, if things work out, she could well be doing a lot more than just talking with her best friend in the coming weeks.

_‘Lol. Yeh was a good talk. Shall I come to yours? Say 1 hour? xx’_

Forty minutes later and Louis gets out of the shower feeling more worked up and sweaty with nerves than she did before she went in. Harry has confirmed their plans, so all that’s left to do is get ready and get out of the house, which proves easier said than done. Louis daren’t leave her room because she’s already shredded with nerves and she knows one false move from any of her sisters would be enough to talk herself out of doing this. So, she stays barricaded in the small box room agonising over what to wear.

It’s only three different pairs of jeans later that Louis realises how stupid she’s being. It’s just Harry! She’s never had to think ahead what she’s going to wear to meet Harry before, why is today any different? She goes back to the first pair of jeans, leaving the other two in a crumpled heap on the carpet. It looks like it might be slightly too sunny out to wear the black turtleneck she had in mind but it’s too late to change her mind now. Up goes her hair and on goes a little bit of mascara, just for effect.

There’s nothing more she can do now; she has to leave now otherwise all this getting ready will have been for nothing. Her hand feels ridiculously clammy as she reaches for the door handle. It’s suspiciously quiet out on the landing and as she makes her way downstairs, but she doesn’t question it.

She steps off the last carpeted step onto the laminate flooring of the hallway and shoves her feet into the first pair of flats she finds.

She coughs quietly and swallows thickly to test out her voice. “I’m off out then,” She calls, wondering if the wobble in her voice is noticeable to other people too. Not one single sibling responds, but Louis hears some shuffling and her mum appears in the door, smiling proudly and reaching her arms out for a cuddle.

“Good luck babe,” Jay whispers discreetly. “I’m proud of you.”

Louis doesn't acknowledge that because that would mean acknowledging that there’s something big she has to do soon. So, she just manages a weak smile. “See you later.”

  


Louis makes it to Harry’s house. She stands at the front door for ages before finally reaching up for the knocker. She lets it fall against the brass plate three times and her whole body sweats as she stands there and waits.

Harry appears very quickly, too quickly for Louis’ liking. Louis can see her through the panels of frosted glass in the door; her hair is big, even bigger than it normally is, and Louis’ heart is in her mouth.

“Hello!” Harry beams as she opens the door. “Don’t mind the hair!” She says immediately. “I let it dry naturally this morning and look what happened! A bird’s nest!”

Louis feels conscious of her own short, stubby and slightly greasy ponytail compared to Harry’s beautifully buoyant barnet. “It’s fine, Haz.” She tries to be reassuring.

Harry’s hair bounces as she leads the way down the hallway into the kitchen. Louis graciously accepts a cuppa and then they trudge up to Harry’s room – despite having free rein of the whole house.

Neither of them have said anything yet and Louis has just about calmed down, until she starts thinking about it again. Then she feels all wobbly and tingly in her extremities again, looking at Harry’s face staring back at her but not really _seeing_ her.

“So…” Harry goes first, thank God. “About last night.”

Louis nods, not trusting herself to speak just yet.

“Are you all right?” Harry asks next, and Louis’ not sure if she means in general or with what happened last night. Either way, Louis just nods. It’s vague and noncommittal enough, she figures, that it won’t do any harm either way.

“Good,” Harry says, her shoulders relaxing slightly. “I guess I don’t know where to start. Maybe at the beginning I suppose?” She laughs weakly at herself. “I just want you to know, I meant every word. But I’ll also understand if you don’t feel the same or if you want me to stop hanging out with you lot, I’ll do anything Lou.”

“What, no! Don’t be mental Haz, I wouldn’t ask you to do that for me, ever!”

That seems to appease Harry for a moment, but she still chews her lip with a frown, not saying anything. Louis sits there waiting for something, anything. She suddenly notices the numbness in her palms where she’s clutching her mug of tea. She leans over to put it on Harry’s bedside table and then sits back, flexing her fingers out.

“Prom!” Harry says suddenly, and it takes Louis by such surprise that she lets out an unstable peal of laughter.

“What?” Louis splutters.

“I mean, it was that night we ditched the prom and stayed up all night just messing about and laughing about random rubbish. After that, it all just sort of… happened. Quite quickly actually.”

Louis casts her mind back to the end of year eleven. On the run up to their prom, the world and it’s wife had assumed the right to ask them increasingly inappropriate questions; some of the worst ones still standing out in Louis’ memory – who’d be in a suit and who was going in a dress.  

Louis swallows the ugly lump in her throat. “That’s like, a year, Hazza.”

Harry nods morosely. “It’s been hard, at times. Most of the time I could just let it bubble away at the back of my mind, because getting to have you as my best friend was better than nothing at all. But sometimes it wasn’t fun.”

Louis feels sick at the thought of all the times in the past year that she’s unwittingly hurt Harry. The last three hundred some days all sort of blur into one and all she can think of is the times she’s scoffed in people’s faces at the idea of her and Harry, when she’s blabbered on and on about all the girls on BBM and… oh.

“Ed?” She asks, and Harry’s eyes flicker with hurt and recognition. “He’s supposed to be your friend isn’t he? Why did he say all that if he knew?”

Harry shakes her head. “I don’t know. I… I told him because I thought I could trust him. I didn’t know he would turn on you like that, I swear.”

“It’s okay, Haz,” Louis says flatly. “You know I don’t give a crap what any boy thinks of me.”

Harry smiles but it doesn’t look genuine. “It was supposed to be a secret ‘til I was ready. _If_ I was ever ready.”

“He’s a prick.” Louis laments, and Harry hurriedly nods in agreement. They both snort softly with laughter and it all feels a little bit easier after that, as if the ice has broken, as if a thirteen year old friendship _needs_ the ice broken on it.

“Can I have a hug?” Harry asks, pouting just a little bit. “All this confessing is making me feel fragile.”

Louis lifts her arm for Harry to crawl under. Harry’s freshly washed hair is right under Louis’ nose; mango or papaya or something equally as exotic, if Louis had to guess. Harry is all knobbly knees and gangly arms but she fits into Louis’ side perfectly, like they were made for each other.

Louis tells herself that there is nothing to worry about, and it actually feels like it won’t be long until she genuinely believes that. They slowly slip down the wall as they cuddle, until they’re basically horizontal; Louis propped up on all of Harry’s pillows and Harry still tucked silently into her side.

Louis looks around Harry’s room as they lay there. It’s neat and tidy; the most unruly offender is a scarf strewn over the wardrobe handle. Louis would bet Harry already has her school uniform washed and hung up ready for the start of the new term.

Harry and her big sister Gemma moved into this house after Anne’s divorce. They were eight years old, in year three at primary school and terrified that Harry would have to move far away. Louis remembers Anne taking Harry (Louis had tagged along as always) to B&Q to pick out the paint, wallpaper and wall art. Afterwards, from WH Smith they’d chosen some posters and sticker books for Harry’s new room, then on to Pizza Hut for tea. Louis realises now that it was just to keep Harry sweet; Anne’s desperate attempts to keep her pre-teen daughter from going off the rails.

That wallpaper is still up; the deep purple wallpaper now a softened lilac from a decade of bleaching by the sun. The posters are gone and just patches of grey gunk remain where the stickers had once been. Harry’s bedding is more sophisticated now and the dollhouse, beanbag chair and toy chest have been replaced, but sometimes it’s like a part of time has stood still in Harry’s room. It’s a source of comfort.

“What you thinking about?” Harry asks softly, knocking Louis out of her daydream.

“Nothin’,” She replies softly. “Just old times and stuff.”

“I wonder if five year old Lou and Hazza could’ve imagined ending up like this?”

Louis has to smile at the thought, she can’t help herself. “I don’t think five year old Lou was thinking about anyone like that, boys _or_ girls!”

Harry lifts her head slightly as she laughs. “Okay, well fifteen year old Lou and Haz then.”

Louis smiles wistfully. “I bet they’d never believe us in a month of Sunday’s.”

“No, probably not.” Harry agrees. Louis smiles silently, closing her eyes again and spacing out. She’s thinking about nothing in particular the next time Harry’s voice interrupts her subconscious.

“I love you,” Harry murmurs, pressing ahead hastily before Louis has time to really react. “Not like _that_ , not yet at least. But like, as my best friend and the person who’s always been there for me. I guess it’s not really surprising that I fell for you.”

Louis wonders if Harry can feel her heart hammering in her chest too. “Fell for me?” She utters, repeating Harry’s words back to her.  “Did you really?”

“’Course,” Harry whispers, like it was obvious. “Who wouldn’t?”

Louis snorts. “Lots of people, trust me.”

“Yeah, well, not me.” Harry says softly. “I think you’re lovely, inside and out.”

Louis can feel herself blushing, and she’s sort of glad that Harry can’t see her right now. It makes the words come easier.

“So are you. You’re worth a million of some of the dickheads in our sixth form. Especially Ed and Nick.”

Louis feels Harry’s body shake with soft laughter. “I agree with you about Ed but Nick’s okay when you get to know him.”

Louis wrinkles her nose for no one’s benefit but her own. “Yeah, no thanks.”

Louis can feel Harry smiling. “Stubborn as ever,” She chuckles. “Never change, Lou.”

“Don’t plan on it,” Louis says, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. She squeezes Harry’s arm ever so slightly and Harry burrows a little bit further down into their embrace.

Louis’ fingers splay over Harry’s arm, mere inches away from exposed skin. Tentatively, Louis begins running her fingertips over Harry’s skin. She watches goosebumps spring up, the soft golden blonde hairs on her arms standing to attention. Harry shudders and Louis instantly retracts her hand.

“You’re making me shiver!” Harry giggles. “You don’t have to stop though, it was nice.”

Louis is well aware that this should be weird. The only thing it really feels, though, is natural. They’ve known each other since they were five; that’s thirteen years of friendship already elapsed at this critical stage of their fledgling relationship. Most people in their positions don’t have thirteen _days_ of memories, let alone _years_.

“We’re lucky,” Harry says. “We’ve always had each other, pretty much, in one way or another. We know each other so well that there won’t be any nasty hidden surprises.”

Louis smiles; sometimes she’s sure Harry can read her mind. “That’s just what I was thinking.”

Harry lifts her head off Louis’ shoulder at that point, shifting off her side into the small gap between Louis’ body and the wall. Her cheek is pink and warm where she’s been tucked away, and her eyes and smile are droopy and calm. Happy.

“Hey,” She says softly, letting her eyes fall closed for a beat and then open again.

“Hey yourself,” Louis whispers back, a nervous jolt through her throat snatching the sound.

“Can I tell you something?” Harry asks.

“Sure?” Louis says slowly.

“That night was my first kiss.”

“Your first ever?” Louis questions with a surprised look on her face, but Harry just nods. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Harry mumbles, looking down at her lap, her vulnerability obvious. “By the time I was thinking about kissing people I already knew that I didn’t want it to be with boys. Then, well, it wasn’t like there were many opportunities for practice. So…”

Louis’ brain swims with the information. Her heart feels like it’s doing a celebratory fist pump in her chest.

“Same, Haz.”

Harry’s eyes start to gleam as recognition hits her. “For real?”

Louis feels a slight blush creep into her cheeks as she nods. “It’s not that crazy is it?”

Louis doesn’t think it’s that surprising that neither of them have kissed anyone before. Even for the straight people the pickings are slim around their town and they get even slimmer when you narrow it down to girls only. Take out all the straight girls, all the family members and all the weirdos and you’re probably left with the choice of about five girls – three of which probably aren’t interested in you.

“No, not at all. You’re the only other lesbian I know.” Harry says. “I _do_ have a theory about Jade being bi though.”

“Okay, we’re coming back to _that_ later!” Louis laughs. “We’re talkin’ about us now though.”

Harry nods, her eyes still sparkling. “I told Niall I’d snogged one of the girls in Gemma’s year. Thought it’d get her to shut up about us. Obviously that didn’t work out.”

Louis smiles fondly at that; all her grievances with Niall ironed out now with the recent turn of events. “She’s oddly invested, isn’t she? Maybe she’s hoping for a threesome?”

“Lou!“ Harry shrieks, smacking her upper arm lightly. “I can’t believe that just came out of your mouth!”

Neither can Louis really. It just sort of tumbled out before Louis had time to apply her filter. “Sorry. I guess we should just stick to kissing for now.”

Harry grins at that, turning her own special shade of crimson too. “Sounds good to me.” She murmurs.

Louis’ not sure who starts to inch forward first, but quickly they’re so close Louis can feel her lips tingling with Harry’s breath. It’d be pointless to say ‘yes’ or nod. They meet again in the middle, Louis tilting her head slightly to the right and Harry going to the left as their eyes simultaneously fall closed and their noses press together gently.

In the immediate aftermath of That Night, Louis’ memories of their kiss had been tinged with regret and panic, but now she can’t imagine ever feeling that way. As they work each other out and get used to how their tongues meld together, Harry shifts slightly up the bed.

They don’t stop kissing while Harry adjusts herself, even while she’s reaching around her shoulders untucking her hair from underneath her own shoulder, they keep connected by way of repeated closed-mouth kisses on each other’s lips.

Harry finally settles down and grins sheepishly against Louis’ lips before they break apart momentarily before going back in for round three. They’re already working in perfect harmony with each other; Louis can’t quite believe it’s been so easy. And it only keeps on getting better.

Louis can feel Harry – for lack of a better word – almost _submitting_ to her as they snog on the bed. Harry starts going all pliant and receptive as she’s kissed, and Louis finds herself naturally assuming the lead. Once she finds her stride she takes her hand that is just lying uselessly between their bodies and touches her fingertips to Harry’s cheek. She threads her fingers through Harry’s hair, wondering if it’s always felt like pure silk.

“Can’t believe I’m kissing you,” Harry murmurs against her lips. “Never thought it’d ever happen.”

Louis likes listening to Harry’s ministrations. She can’t find the words to articulate quite what she’d like to be saying back to her though, but that doesn’t seem to deter Harry.

“It’s so much better than I ever imagined,” Harry continues. “Can’t believe you’re real Lou. I… I’m sorry if this is too much, but…”

 _It’s not too much_ , Louis replies in her head. It should be, maybe, they’re only a few hours into their… whatever this is going to become, but on the other hand this moment in time has been thirteen years in the making and Louis doesn’t feel that those vital years should be discarded now.

“Hazza,” She whispers, bravely surging forward and connecting their lips again. With her fingers still laced through Harry’s curls she tugs a bit harder to pull Harry closer. She hears Harry’s yelp disappear within their kiss and in one swift movement Harry rolls the last quarter turn onto her back and Louis shuffles up onto one elbow. With Harry pressed down into the pillows and her hands travelling freely over Louis’ lower back and hips, who knew kissing could be so fun?

“You’re amazing, Lou,” Harry gasps, their lips not quite disconnected yet. Harry’s words tickle and vibrate through Louis’ lips.

“So are you,” Louis returns, hoping she’s finally found her voice. “So nice.”

They don’t go any further than kissing for now. They spend a long time between snogging sessions just lounging around on Harry’s bed, watching telly for a bit, chatting for a bit, sneaking downstairs for food _a lot._ Before they know it, the sound of Anne’s car swinging onto the driveway makes them both sit bolt upright.

Louis watches Harry with bated breath as she listens to the engine die and doors opening and closing. She can hear Anne and Gemma chattering away to each other though it’s indiscernible.

“Do you wanna tell her now or do you wanna wait?” Harry whispers, like they’re going to be overheard.

Louis doesn’t even need to think about it. “Wait. Just for a while, yeah?”

Harry nods gratefully. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Shall we… what do we do, do we go downstairs or…?”

“If you like?” Harry shrugs. “Just act normal I guess?”

It’s not a difficult thing, acting normal, because as far as their friendship is concerned nothing has changed yet. Louis hopes it will stay that way. Plus, both of their mums have always known how close they are so in actual fact the next hour or so with Anne is not as awkward as Louis might’ve expected.

They end up spending all day together, staying downstairs for about another half an hour talking to Anne and after she invites Louis to stay for tea deciding what to have. After tea, the two of them disappear back upstairs for a while before going out into the back garden to catch the little bit of late summer sun.

  


**Hazzy:** _Does this mean you’re my girlfriend now?_

It’s later on now. Anne dropped Louis home and Louis’ been lounging around on the sofa with a cuppa ever since. The dynamic duo and the other two are in bed so Louis has the entire sofa to herself and it’s a nice life that Louis could get used to.

Louis giggles coyly as she reads and re-reads the message, and then a second message follows with just a winking face. Louis rolls her eyes even though Harry can’t _actually_ see her. She’s thinking of ways to agree without seeming overly keen and desperate when she suddenly realises something.

With a broad smile on her face as she types out the words, she sends Harry a short message in response, thinking herself rather crafty for it, too.

_‘Im not saying anythin til u ask me properly styles! X’_

Harry’s response is not instant, but when it comes through it’s so inherently Harry that Louis can’t stop laughing.

 **Hazzy:** _Challenge accepted._

  


The four days that follow before going back to school for year thirteen are the best of Louis’ life. She hadn’t realised that just simple things like spending a few hours tucked in behind Harry in her bed watching rubbish telly could be so wonderful.

They don’t spend all their time holed up in Harry’s room though. They venture out and go see a film; the fifth Final Destination film came out a few weeks ago. The cinema is deserted in the middle of the day and they have almost the entire place to themselves, which is just as well because Harry jumps and shrieks at almost every twist and turn. They end up pushing up the arm rest that separates them and cuddling together to watch the last half an hour of the film, and if Louis secretly uses Harry’s hair to hide behind, well then nobody needs to know.

Jay catches Louis when she’s coming in from Harry’s late on Saturday evening, having been at Harry’s since ten o’ clock that morning. Louis doesn’t give much away, just that it’s going well. she suspects that both the mums might be onto them though.

  


On their last evening of freedom before going back to school, Harry goes all out for Louis with (so far) the nicest thing anyone has ever done for her, blowing any doubt surrounding the nature of their friendship now out of the water.

Louis arrives on Harry’s doorstep after having watched her sisters all afternoon for mum. It’s about half past six or thereabouts, nothing significant so far about the day; in fact, Louis is feeling rather morose about having to go back to reality tomorrow. Although, her reality is that bit brighter now, and that’s the silver lining.

Louis pulls her headphones out of her ears and peers up as she spots a light come on in an upstairs window. That’s Anne’s room, Louis knows. The downstairs seems pretty much submerged in darkness from Louis’ vantage point, and she begins to wonder if perhaps she’s being set up.

It feels like a million years ago that Louis first knocked the door, but somehow her arms are locked in place by her sides and she can’t bring up the courage to knock again. She’s about to glance over her shoulder and see if she’s being watched when the door opens.

“Hey,” Harry smiles softly. Louis looks past her shoulder quizzically, trying to work out what’s going on and why it’s so dark. “Sorry, come in. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Louis says slowly as she steps inside and closes the door behind her. “Haz? What’s going on? Why’s it so dark?”

Harry doesn’t answer. Louis follows her up the dim hallway towards the kitchen. Louis can smell food, and as Harry tentatively pushes the door open Louis sees the flicker of candlelight bouncing off the walls. Louis continues on, stepping from the plush cream carpet of the hallway to the firm wooden floor of the kitchen.

“What’s all this?” She murmurs on an out breath, peering over the kitchen counter to the dining table where the table is set for two, with flowers and a candle adorning the surface.

“Surprise?” Harry says weakly, jazz hands out as she spins around to face Louis. “I wanted to do something nice for you. So…”

Louis feels suddenly very close to tears as she scans the room again. “For me?” She chokes out. “Really?”

Harry nods sheepishly. “It’s… it’s not much, only pasta, but… well I wanted to do something nice and we go back to school tomorrow so this was the only chance I had. Mum helped me with some of it, but… well, I’m blabbering on now but I hope you like it.”

Louis can’t quite believe this is really happening. She keeps looking around Harry’s kitchen and waiting for the daydream to come to an abrupt end, but it doesn’t. Harry reaches out and touches her arm, and the touch is real and solid upon her skin.

“It’s ready, so… if you’re ready to eat we can have it now.”

Louis nods and Harry escorts her over to the table, pulling a chair out and nodding for her to sit down. “Thank you,” She murmurs. Harry gives a quick smile and then scuttles back to the kitchen and starts banging and crashing around with various plates and spoons until their dinner is served.

Harry carries the plates carefully across the room to the table, pure concentration on her face until the plates are safely deposited onto the placemats.

“I hope you like it,” Harry says humbly as she slides into her own chair, then promptly springing up again. “The garlic bread and salad! I forgot the garlic bread and salad!”

Louis smiles fondly as she watches Harry dash around, two serving bowls in hand upon her return.

The pasta bake that Harry has cooked up is delicious; Harry looks fairly proud of herself. Louis makes a conscious effort to have a (small) scoop of salad too, because the effort Harry has put in is obvious. Between the two of them they devour the garlic bread no problem.

“That was really nice, Haz,” Louis says as she pushes her plate away. It’s practically sparkling as she’d used her garlic bread crusts to soak up the last of the tomato sauce. “I dunno what I did to deserve that but it was really nice.”

“Well you said to me you weren’t gonna go out with me until I asked you properly, so I wanted to do something nice for you so it was less likely you’d turn me down.” Harry admits, sounding less and less confident as she goes on.

Louis’ smile must be tickling her temples with how large it is but she can’t find it in herself to care. “Well this is quite nice.” She says. _I would never turn you down,_ is what she wants to say, but she doesn’t have the nerve yet.

“Oh ‘quite’ nice, is it? It was _really_ nice a minute ago!”

“Yeah well, I’ve been sitting here for like, half an hour and I still haven’t got a kiss!”

Harry laughs, rolling her head on her neck and jiggling her shoulders. “Is that a hint?”

Louis blushes as she nods and smiles.

Harry _very_ slowly pulls herself up out of her seat and holds her hands out to lift Louis too. Louis places her hands in Harry’s and holds on tight as Harry pulls her up out of her seat and into her arms. They have a little cuddle first, there in the middle of Harry’s kitchen, with the remnants of the first meal she’s ever had cooked for her on the table.

“Thank you for treating me,” Louis whispers into Harry’s shoulder. They sway back and forth very slightly, holding onto each other like lifelines. “For not giving up on me even though I can be a right cow at times.”

Louis feels Harry laughing softly. “Everyone has the right to be a bit of a cow sometimes, Lou. I was never gonna give up. I dunno what I was gonna do, but it was never giving up.”

Louis smiles absently to herself in Harry’s arms, her eyes closed and Harry close enough to smell the exotic fruits in her hair and the faint smell of tomatoes on her clothes.

“About that kiss then?” Harry murmurs a few moments later, and Louis’ grin grows exponentially.

She lifts her head off Harry’s chest and with their arms still wrapped tightly around each other Louis leans back a bit, blinking Harry back into focus. “Hi,” She murmurs, and Harry smiles as she whispers hi back. Then, they’re kissing again. Harry moves her hands down Louis’ body until they’re resting on the swell of her bum. Louis brings her own hands around to grip around the curves that sit above the waistband of Harry’s jeans.

Louis can now taste the sweet tang of tomatoes on Harry’s tongue too, and she no doubt absolutely reeks of garlic herself, but it’s okay. They explore each other, still getting used to working like this together and figuring out those sweet spots that make each other mewl with content and make their hearts soar with elation. Kissing Harry is fun and Louis can’t believe it took her this long to find that out.

They kiss until they have to pause for air. Harry rests their foreheads together. Louis’ lips tingle as Harry murmurs softly against them. “Lou?” She says, breathlessly and gravelly. “Will you be my girlfriend?”

Louis pretends to think about it, even though it’s a no-brainer. “Yes, Harry,” She says as a jolt of emotion works its way through her body. “That’d be nice.”

Harry tuts and rolls her eyes. “Nice!” She mutters, effectively silenced as Louis goes back in for another kiss. “I’ll show you nice.” Louis laughs and wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, but that’s a discussion for another day.

They relocate to the living room although they don’t put the telly on. They sit together on the three-seater, Harry in the corner and Louis sitting cross legged in between the relaxed V of her legs. Their fingers are linked together very loosely, resting on Louis’ leg.

“What are we gonna do about school? Do we say anything or do we just let ‘em figure it out themselves?”

Harry shrugs. “Not sure. With a bit of luck, now we’re actually together all the gossip and interest will die off.”

“Hope so,” Louis murmurs. “I couldn’t face a million questions every time.”

 _I just want to spend every second of the day getting to know you in this new facet of our relationship_ , Louis would say if she had the finesse.

“We’ll tell the other girls,” Harry says, and Louis agrees. They couldn’t not; they’re lucky enough that they don’t have to keep their fledgling relationship a secret. “Not sure how, but…”

Louis smiles, not relishing the idea at all. “We’ll figure summat out.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees softly, and then they sit in silence for a bit. Harry traces patterns with her thumb over the ridges of Louis’ knuckles. Her head is tilted to one side resting on the sofa cushion, eyes closed. Louis can just imagine all the mornings they’ll eventually get to share; under the duvet shivering in the winter and blinded by the sun streaming in the window in summer.

In the comfortable silence between them, Louis can hear some shuffling about outside the living room door. Soon enough, Harry lifts her head and opens her eyes and gives her a knowing smile; she hears it too. They exchange a bemused glance, an unspoken agreement, and then Harry opens her mouth and shouts, “You can come in, mother!”

“I wasn’t loitering!” Anne exclaims as she bursts excitedly in the door, looking between the pair of them with wide, eager eyes. “Well! How did it go! I’m dying of suspense!”

Louis laughs politely as Harry groans and fields her mum’s question.

“Yes, it went well. That’s all you need to know!”

“Ah, girls, I’m so happy for you both!” Anne exclaims, lifting her arms above her head in a cheer. Anne’s reaction is entirely not unexpected but it still makes Louis feel unexpectedly emotional. “C’mon, gimme a cuddle!”

Louis thanks Anne as she lets her go, moving on to ruffle Harry’s hair and place a kiss on her forehead.

“Now to tackle the mess in my kitchen!” Anne says loudly and pointedly as she disappears out of the room. “I’ll be phoning Jay first thing tomorrow, Lou, so make sure you bring her up to speed ASAP!”

Louis and Harry just burst out laughing.

  


Louis stays up far too late telling her mum all about the latest developments, so on Tuesday morning rather than bright eyed and bushy tailed Louis is bleary eyed and bushy haired. Perfect for the first day back.

With an old Harrogate Spring bottle full of orange squash and (hopefully) all of her textbooks her bag, Louis hurries out the door at twenty past eight too hurried and stressed to worry too much about what she is going to be walking into once everyone finds out the new status between her and Harry.

Ordinarily they all try and congregate together at some point along the route into school but on days like these when one or more of them are running late they just meet up in the common room. She has texts from Liam that she hasn’t yet responded to yet, and texts from Harry that are a big part of the reason why she’s running late to begin with. Nevertheless, Louis knows her friends and her sixth form common room well enough to make an educated guess on where she’ll find them.

She does keep half an eye open for a familiar face to no avail as she hurries across the playground and in through the side entrance, across the empty canteen and up the busy stairwell to the first floor. Right at the end of the maths corridor is their common room, the bright blue door looming like a monument in isolation.

Just as Louis approaches the door it swings open and Aiden and Matt saunter out, holding the door for Louis until she’s two steps away from them and then letting it swing closed.

“Pricks,” she mutters under her breath as she shoulders her way through the door and scans the room for anyone she might know.

Alas, the common room is bustling but not with anyone Louis wants to speak to. The little cluster of seats that they normally frequent is empty though, so Louis heads on over. However, before she can make any progress at all, cold, bony fingers wrap around her wrist and yank her back.

“Hi Louby-Lou!” Harry greets her, smile wide and goofy almost. “Y’alright? I was just behind you in the corridor but I didn't wanna call out for you in case you didn't hear me. Then I’d just look like a tit.”

Louis snorts; it’s ungainly but it’s out there now. Harry’s seen a lot worse from her, she supposes.

Together they sit down, pausing for a moment and double checking with each other by way of a nervous, giggly exchange before squeezing onto the same low, wide chair together.

“Cosy,” Louis remarks, wiggling her bum until she is comfy. They get themselves situated and then it’s awkward for a small beat. Harry gives the room a quick once-over and then holds out her flattened palm for Louis to take. She hesitates initially and wonders if Harry senses it, but taking a deep breath and trying to put things into perspective helps. She lifts her hand and slides her fingers down Harry’s palm, slotting their fingers together nicely.

Then they just sit there, hands discreetly joined between their bodies. Nobody bats an eyelid; they just exist together in that moment in time, happily. They both give each other reassuring smiles and Louis squeezes Harry’s hand.

Harry looks over at the door and then murmurs quietly to Louis, “The others will be here any second.”

“Yeah,” Louis agrees. ”Are you okay?”

“I am,” Harry confirms, nodding confidently. That makes Louis happy.

“This year’s gonna be the best year.” Louis promises.

She wiggles her hand free of Harry’s grip to give her knee a reassuring squeeze. Harry giggles charmingly as Louis then traces lines up the outside of Harry’s thigh with her index finger until-

“Ey up, what’s this?”

Louis can feel Harry’s first instinct upon hearing Zayn’s voice is to jump apart, but she keeps her grounded with her touch upon her leg. Louis hears the deep in-breath Harry takes before lifting her head up to acknowledge Zayn, who has Liam trailing behind her looking curious and proud.

Zayn however has a smug, shit-eating grin on her face and she’s looking at where Louis’ hand meets Harry’s thigh.

“Don’t tell me you two’ve _finally_ pulled your heads outta your arses and got wi’ each other?”

Louis rolls her eyes. _Such_ eloquence. “I’ll shove _your_ head up your arse if you’re not careful.” She threatens with a smirk.

“Is that a promise?” Zayn deadpans, wiggling her perfect brows as she flops into one of the seats opposite. “So for real this time? Not just in Niall’s fantasies?”

Zayn and Liam both laugh at that.

“Yeah, for real.” Harry confirms quietly, shifting her knee a millimetre or two closer to Louis’. The coy, shy look and the pink blush on her cheeks makes Louis feel all warm and tingly behind her ribs, right where her heart is.

“Awww!” Zayn coos loudly, with only a hint of facetiousness that Louis knows is in good humour. “Well, congrats on all the lezza sex!”

“Nice one girls, ‘m happy for yous.” Liam smiles politely while Zayn continues to be vulgar, announcing upon Niall’s arrival, “Hey, Nialler! Guess what? These two are finally shagging!”

“Pfft, old news!” Niall scoffs, waving a hand dismissively, but she’s grinning as she says it and she catches both of their eyes. “Nah, for real though, I’m pleased for you guys. I knew you’d work things out.”

“Thanks,” They both say as Niall throws herself into the narrow sliver of space between Zayn and Liam. It’s profound for Niall, and it brings Louis great comfort to know that despite all of the ribbing and teasing over the past year, their friends have faith in them that they’ll be okay.

Especially from Niall.

Later on, after the gruelling _triple_ English that they all attend together, Liam and Niall and Louis are traipsing around to the IT block for double Business Studies.

“Do you love her?” Liam asks. Her question is genuine, Louis can tell by the look in her warm brown eyes. “Harry.”

Louis rolls her eyes, because as if she needed clarification. The thing is, Louis should be saying _no, of course not, it’s too early and we’ve only been together five days_ , but she doesn’t say that. She doesn’t feel that way at all.

She’s saving her first declaration of love, pseudo or not, for Harry directly of course, but Louis settles on something that’s still pretty inclusive for Liam. “I definitely could.”

“It won’t be long,” Niall says wisely. “Mark my words.”

“Oh yeah?” Louis asks, although technically speaking she does not disagree with what Niall laments. “And you can see the future can you?”

Niall smirks. “Louis Tomlinson. I was right about you and Harry shagging,” Louis doesn’t even bother to correct her. “And I will be right about you two falling in love as well, just you wait and see.”

Niall throws a big grin over her shoulder as they drop down to single file to enter the classroom.

“What do you reckon, Payno?” Niall asks, and Louis looks back over her shoulder at Liam behind her, keen for her response.

“I reckon, Nialler, that I wouldn’t want to bet against you.” Liam pauses briefly before answering, tactfully, and it’s such a Liam thing to say Louis has to groan.

But she thinks about Harry across the school in the Art & Design block, doing whatever fancy-schmancy creative stuff A-Level Photography students do, and she smiles.

“Even if I’m wrong – which I’m _not_ – I’ll be right eventually, so… may as well give it up now, Tommo.”

Louis sighs; she wants to point out that Niall’s logic is flawed but in actual fact it’s not. Niall is so painfully correct, accurate, spot-on, that Louis can’t stand it.

She reckons it’ll be really easy, falling in love with Harry. Her little crush developed _very_ easily after she realised that’s what it was. It was easy opening up and allowing Harry into her life _like that._ Little bits of Harry all over; yeah, that’s what Louis wants for the foreseeable, Harry’s beautiful soul inside her heart, Harry’s delicate touch on her wrist and the ghost of Harry’s kisses on her lips.

Yeah, Louis reckons that’d be quite nice.

 

 

 

 

_The end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and it I fulfilled the prompt okay! I’ve never done anything like this before and it was fun having a goal to work towards and a helping hand with fleshing out a plotline! Any mistakes are my own!
> 
> My prompt was: Person A and Person B are the only two lesbians in their tiny high school, and everyone assumes they’re dating even though they aren’t. Until they are. (Could also be set in a small workplace if you’d rather not write about minors)
> 
> Please see the next chapter for a reverse POV snippet of Harry preparing dinner for Louis!  
> And please do check out the other fics in the collection!


	3. Chapter 3

**Harry’s POV**

 

“I  _ really _ don’t think it will matter to Louis that your sauce is from a jar, Harry!” Anne tries to soothe her banshee of a daughter as she throws a fit in the middle of Tesco. “It’s the thought that counts! She’d gonna love it either way!”

“Oh it’s not the thought that counts! That’s what you say when the person clearly couldn’t be arsed! I need to put effort in and show her that I’m serious, that I care!”

“Yes, and cooking a lovely pasta dish with a side salad  _ and _ garlic bread  _ is _ showing that you’re serious and you care!” Anne explains.

Harry stares desperately back at her mum, almost vibrating with frustration. 

“Oh my God, what’s the point? I may as well just give up!”

“Harriet, snap out of it! You’re being ridiculous. Get the sauce, come on. I’m going to the spaghetti aisle and if you don’t follow me I am choosing it for you!”

Harry’s frustration bubbles up into (probably misplaced) anger as her mum saunters off. Her anger snaps and crackles through her extremities as she lets out a pained cry, grabs the tomato sauce jar off the shelf and flounces off after her mum.

“There you are!” Anne exclaims when Harry marches up to her side. “Now, which pasta would you like?”

“Does it matter?” Harry mutters. “Pasta’s pasta isn’t it?”

Anne smirks. “You’ve changed your tune! A minute ago you were getting ready to strain your own tomatoes!”

“Shut up!” Harry groans, but she can’t help the betraying smile on her lips. “I don’t know which pasta, help me pick! Does it make a difference?”

“Not really,” Anne says, lifting two different packs off the shelf. “Spirals look pretty? Fusilli is a pretty safe bet, but these spirals look particularly fancy.”

“Yeah all right,” Harry agrees, taking them from her mum and putting them in the basket. “Spirals it is then. What’s next?”

Anne shakes her head at her in despair as they trundle off down the next aisle in search of garlic bread. It’s while they’re debating the pros and cons of flatbreads versus baguettes that Harry suddenly realises she hasn’t got anything for pudding.

Off she goes hurtling towards the desserts, leaving Anne in her dust still clutching the two different varieties of garlic bread. 

“Harry, you haven’t- oh! Why do I even bother?” Anne exclaims, following her down the aisle towards the freezers. “I’ve got you flatbreads, like it or lump it.”

“Fine,” Harry murmurs, opening up the freezer door and peering in, scrutinising the offerings. “What do you reckon? Something fruity or something chocolatey? It’s quite warm still, and the food is gonna be quite garlicky so I think fruity is a good idea, yeah? Okay, what about mango sorbet? That sounds posh doesn’t it! What is it, like ice cream? Yeah, it must be, that sign says ice cream.”

Plucking a small tub of mango sorbet off the shelf without bothering to look at the price tag, Harry slams the foggy freezer door closed and turns to her mum with a triumphant grin. “What?!” She exclaims when she sees the bemused, flabbergasted look on her mum’s face.

“You!” Anne laughs. “You’re like a whirlwind, my girl. Come on, let’s get to the tills before we can come across any more drama!”

Harry pouts as they wander towards the checkouts. She doesn’t think she’s been very dramatic; it’s a big thing cooking your first meal for your first girlfriend. Well, all being well, after tonight Louis’ll be her first girlfriend. Why doesn’t Anne get that?

The boy at the till scans their items through emotionlessly and Anne pays quickly. Harry feels a pang of guilt when she sees the total flash up on the screen but Anne pays and puts away her card with a broad smile and ushers her out of the shop with a warm  _ thank you  _ to the checkout lad.

  
  


When they get home they head straight for the kitchen because it’s already after five and Harry has no idea when Louis will actually be done babysitting. 

“What do we do first?” Harry asks.

“Unpack the bags.” Anne says, and Harry’s shoulders sag. Nevertheless, they finish the menial task and then Harry surveys all the jars and packets. 

“Okay! Pasta first or sauce first?”

“Get all your pans and stuff out first, else you’ll be forever chasing your tail.” Anne says, moving to open the pan cupboard.  _ Such _ a mum. “You’ll need a frying pan for the pancetta, a large pan for the pasta and a milk pan for the sauce. That should do it.”

“What’s a milk pan?” Harry asks as Anne points out the smallest of the bunch. “Oh okay. Cute name.”

“The sauce is already cooked, of course, but letting it bubble over a very low heat for longer will help bring the flavours out and smoke them out a bit.” Anne says, taking the jar and handing it to Harry. “Pour it in and put the hob on mark two.”

Dutifully, Harry follows instruction and adds the little finishing touches as Anne recommends them; some oregano, a pinch of salt and pepper and some paprika too. There’s no time to sit and admire the sauce though, she has to start crisping off the pancetta, apparently.

“S’like posh bacon int’it?” She comments as she prods the sizzling pancetta cubes with a spatula.

“Yes, exactly, bacon but with more effort.” Anne says, and Harry turns to her mum and smirks.

“Thanks mum.”

“Anytime, sweetheart. I can’t quite believe you’re doing this. My baby is all grown up! Eighteen soon! In the blink of an eye you’ll be graduating university and leaving me!”

Harry stops herself from visibly shuddering at the thought, but she is quick to brush her mum off.  

“Oh, c'mon, that’s a long way off yet, mum.” She reasons. “Come on, tell me what I have to do now.”

“Stir the sauce. Boil the kettle for the pasta, get your pan ready. There’s always stuff you can be doing to save time. Cooking is all about timing.”

“All right,” Harry agrees, reaching first for the handle of the wooden spoon that’s sticking out of the pasta sauce amidst a thin plume of steam. “Easy. This cooking malarkey’s a piece of piss, isn’t it?”

Anne tuts. “Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, do you really have to be quite so vulgar, sweetheart?”

Harry grins sheepishly and begins her second task, filling the kettle ready to boil it. “This speeds it up, I’m assuming?”

“Yes,” Anne nods. “If the water is already hot and the pan is under a heat, it’ll come up to boil much quicker.”

Harry nods along as she’s doing it. The kettle is a rapid boil one because they’re a family of tea addicts, so it’s ready in under a minute. She follows her mum’s guidance on how high to fill it and then pours what feels like too much salt into the water, but she trusts her mum’s judgement.

When the water comes to what Harry has learned is called a rolling boil, Anne lets her know she can toss the pasta in. The pasta spirals are softening nicely and she’s been assured she can turn the heat off under the sauce now. 

“What do we do now?”

“Nothing,” Anne smiles. “Just wait for the pasta. About ten or twelve minutes.”

“Okay,” Harry nods, taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly. 

“So!” Anne says, clapping her hands together, and Harry knows she’s done for. “Do we need to chat? ‘Cause I’m all ears, all the time, Harry. You know that don’t you love?”

Harry can feel the embarrassment coursing through her body already and she wonders if going face first into the pasta sauce would be more enjoyable. 

“Yes!” She groans, grabbing the empty sauce jar and proceeding to tear the label off, just for a distraction.

“I’m just saying!” Anne exclaims. “We’ve known Louis all our lives practically; you two’ve been best friends since day one. She’s a lovely girl, very pretty to boot and I can’t really say I’m surprised that you started to feel-“

“Oh my God mum, no!” Harry interrupts. She can see where this is going. “Don’t go there!”

“No, no, c’mon let me say this! I want you to know you can talk to me about anything, Harry. I will always do my very best to understand and to help. I’m happy that the first girl you’re cooking dinner for is someone like Louis. She’s a lovely girl.”

“Yeah,” Harry grumbles, shrugging her shoulders up to ears and pouting heavily. “She is.”

“Just make sure the two of you talk about this; talk, talk and talk some more! You’ve a lot at stake here.”

“Mum, she’s my best friend, it’ll be fine!” Harry points out, and she misses the look Anne gives her because she hides her face in the crook of her elbow dramatically, but if she’d have seen it she’d have seen a look of understanding and pride but at the same time of caution and a small amount of trepidation.

“I know sweetheart,” Anne says, reaching out to take Harry’s limbs away from her face. “And I’m proud of you both.”

Harry feels herself blushing and her throat getting itchy under such close scrutiny from her mum. To be told she’s made her mum proud is something so monumental and important she feels like she should be documenting it in a journal or something. Either way, she definitely won’t forget it in a hurry.

“Thanks mum,” She says, turning back to her cooking before she does something ridiculous like burst into tears. “Is it time to do the garlic bread?”

“What time is Lou due?”

Harry pulls her phone out to double check Louis hasn’t subsequently cancelled on her, but there’s a message sitting there on the home screen assuring Harry that Louis can’t wait to see her.

“About half an hour? Maybe a bit longer?”

“Okay,” Anne nods. “Then no, it’s a bit too early for garlic bread. You want it fresh out of the oven when dinner’s served. Let’s finish off the pasta, get it all mixed in and then get it in a dish to go under the grill a minute or two before serving.”

All that sounds very technical and beyond Harry’s comprehension, but she nods along and does as her mum tells her. Soon, it’s quarter past six and everything is ready, with the finishing touches to be done in the last five minutes or so. Harry has a message from Louis confirming she’s on her way, and suddenly Harry feels very bloody sick.

“God I’m nervous now. I’m sweating!”

“You look fine love, honestly!”

Harry scoffs. “’Fine’! Oh that’s perfect that is!”

“Oh, give over!” Anne fluffs Harry’s hair and dusts off her jumper. “You look beautiful, as always, and the dinner is going to be spectacular.”

Anne helps her arrange the trays on the oven shelf so she can cook the garlic bread and the pasta bake together. After washing her hands to get the smell of cheese off them, Harry looks around the room to survey her handiwork. She sniffs the air; garlic, and lots of it.

“I need to light a candle!” She exclaims, her eyes bugging wide. “Help me find a candle mum!”

Harry finds two half-burned pillar candles and her mum’s brand new Fluffy Towels Yankee Candle, and has them all burning at once. With the light down low and the milky dusk filtering in from outside, Harry feels she’s set quite a nice mood all in all.

She’s purposely not meeting her mum’s eye though because she doesn’t want the embarrassment. She moves the jar candle a few millimetres to the left and then pushes it back again, twisting it round so the label is facing outwards.

“Shit! We’re gonna need cutlery! I should set the table shouldn’t I! Like in a proper restaurant!”

Harry whirls around the kitchen grabbing knives and forks from the drawer and even pinching Anne’s vase of silk flowers off the window sill to plonk down in the middle of the table. Once she’s happy with the setup she looks over to see her mum standing in the middle of the kitchen with her arms folded smiling bemusedly.

“Don’t laugh at me!”

“I’m not!” Anne exclaims, laughing out loud. Harry’s phone dings right at that moment, and her heart practically stops.

**Louby-Lou:** _2 mins away xxx_

Harry bolts across the room to grab it, her heart rate shooting up as she reads the little message. Between them they fly around the kitchen getting trays out of the oven and salad leaves into a serving bowl. Anne has a million different types of dressings that she conjures up from nowhere and the garlic bread though stinky is certainly making Harry’s stomach rumble.

“Right, that’s it I think! All systems go!”

“Okay, now go! Go! She’s gonna be here any minute!” Harry exclaims, wafting her mum out of the kitchen into the shadowy hallway.

“Can I at least put a light on? I can’t see a thing, Harry!”

“No!” Harry exclaims. “It’s got to be like this, you can’t have the light on! It’ll ruin everything!”

“Okay, okay! I’m going!” Anne shouts, laughing to herself irritatingly as she begins disappearing up the stairs. “Be careful when you serve it up! The dishes will be hot!”

“Yes I know that!” Harry screeches.

“All right, all right! Well good luck, I hope it goes well! Try and get all your snogging in before the garlic bread-“

“Mum shut up, oh my God!”

Anne is cackling with laughter as she carries on up the stairs. “And  _ please _ do not burn my house down!” 

Harry stands at the foot of the stairs watching to make sure her mum actually goes. She listens for her opening the door with a slow creak and then the click of the light switch and the soft pad of footsteps across the room before the slight groan of the mattress springs.

“Right,” She murmurs under her breath, about to turn on her heel and head back to the disaster zone – sorry, kitchen, when-

 

_ Knock knock knock. _

  
  
  


 


End file.
